So, what's your opinion on current healer jobs

[Recon1o6]

Longer aspected helios regen so you can spend more time on attacking spells, Extended balance on everyone in a group during a raid (6 seconds makes a difference), longer crit boost on a bard or monk, or arrow buff so that player could perform better for longer, extend the mp regen ewer on that poor rdm who you just revived from a lag spike induced death...

There's loads of ways it could be used and it required careful thinking to see who'd get the best benefit.

And if you actually read that post, you would have seen that it was likely the player not using their abilities correctly rather than actual mp negativity because SB astrologian required proper management of her tools to function well, which said player was not given they kept the expensive Aspected benefic up as much as possible (very high mp cost)

Lastly Astro has no mp recovery whatsoever now outside of lucid. That's down from having luminerferous and ewer in hw, and further down from just ewer of sb outside of the role action.

[Gemina]

My opinion is nothing has changed for me. Going into ShB, AST was benched, WHM was my go to dungeon mower, and SCH was used for the Alliance Raids and EX trials. This remains the same to this day. I tend to use NM trials and raids as a trial of sorts to see which healer I will focus on the most. The winner goes on to do the 24-man and EX stuff, and SCH is the reining champ.

This does not mean that healers are the same as pre ShB; it just means that the changes they've made resulted in the same preferred composition I use for post max level progression. However, the reason why nothing has changed has more to do with nothing changing to the conditions that leads me to those decisions:

- AST has always been benched because of it insufferable card mechanic. It sucked pre ShB, and it still sucks now. This job is actually pretty fun to play when you take the cards right out of it.

- WHM plays identical to pre ShB, and Misery while very good, is sooooo much more fun to use on multiple targets. So in the dungeons it has remained. Rapture is probably the best thing that happened to WHM this expac, and would make it really desirable in high-end content if the instant AoE weren't already covered by my co-healers, who both have ogcd methods of getting that job done.

- SCH has continuously had its DPS skills pruned expansion after expansion. For some reason SCH is the redheaded step child. Despite this, the jobs appeal for me hasn't lessened one bit. The reason for this is because I never cared for their DPS kit to begin with, and my biggest gripe probably has more to do with removal of skills from the pet hotbar, and when we asked for fairy glamours, combining and pruning the skills of Eos and Selene isn't what ANYONE had in mind.

SCH remains the most fun for me because even those with low perception like myself, will quickly notice that a lot of their GCD usage doesn't go towards damaging the enemy, but supporting the group. It might be the healer with the most demand for supportive GCDs. I don't count WHM afflatus skills due to Misery.

I find the the homogenization of healers doesn't really apply to me. If I felt they were this way, there wouldn't be an element of favoritism among them, or a preference based on the content. What I find to be homogenized with them is their DPS expectancy which boils down to spamming their ST while keeping up their one DoT. Again though, as a healer I couldn't care less about this.

Overall, the issues I have with each healer also has not changed, and some additional gripes were added along with ShB. So to summarize, at best healers are stagnant with me. But the underlying truth is that my interest in them is gradually but surely waning. ShB is the first expansion I brought another role into EX trials (my SAM). While it is good to try new things and increase my perspective of what other roles go through in different kinds of content; sadly it's for the wrong reason. I brought my SAM into EX trials because of the fact that healing in this game hasn't really improved at all and is becoming even less engaging despite my reasoning of it having nothing to do with the loss of DPS skills.

[EaMett]

They really can't if the devs want to keep the philosophy of "you can clear with any reasonable party configuration". It's the main factor for the split between "pure healing" and "shield healing" in the design, and is similar to the "Main/Off Tank" concept.

The moment they distance Ast specifically from either design concept is the moment it can't compete with the other two healers anymore. Both design concepts are heavily integral to a lot of the current encounter design, so making that kind of change would require a rework on a massive scale to implement. Sure it'll be cool for a while to have all three (and potentially a fourth) healers having their own niche, but designing encounters around four different unique kits is extremely restricting.

You can have different kits without having different healing spreads. AST being the middle ground is also perfectly fine, it does not need to excel at either since the past, current, and most likely future content doesn't require one to leverage their full healing kit anyways. It just means that AST's skill floor will be a bit higher than that of the other two, and that's perfectly acceptable.
Not only is diversifying healers doable without a huge rework but it's how things were -in this game- to some extent before ShB, the ONLY real issue in healer balance at the time was WHM's rdps (and lily mechanic) which could have been easily fixed/avoided if they had taken a closer look at the role. Not only that but this exists in other games. It's not like they need to reinvent the wheel, it's really just a resource issue.

[Barraind]

Not only that but this exists in other games. It's not like they need to reinvent the wheel, it's really just a resource issue.

Generally when you get to 4+ healing specs / classes, you end up wanting to use 2 different sets of healers (one for main tank healing, one for AE healing), but having distinct kits for even 6 healers isnt unfathomable (If ESO can manage more distinctly unique healer styles than 14 while having fewer total heal + support skills in its game than you have on any one of 14's healers, its a pretty low bar to step over) or revolutionary.

I'm a little worried that squeenix is having so many problems getting the basics right with 3 healers when it already includes field effects and triggered healing effects in its arsenal. Glowy circles you can stand in and a beacon you could place and radiate heals off would have been a fever dream of design space for games with 4 viable healers in the early/mid 00's, and in the late teens and early 20's its "we cant figure out how to make them different enough". You wot m8? Are you serious?

[GrimGale]

- AST has always been benched because of it insufferable card mechanic. It sucked pre ShB, and it still sucks now. This job is actually pretty fun to play when you take the cards right out of it.

- WHM plays identical to pre ShB, and Misery while very good, is sooooo much more fun to use on multiple targets. So in the dungeons it has remained. Rapture is probably the best thing that happened to WHM this expac, and would make it really desirable in high-end content if the instant AoE weren't already covered by my co-healers, who both have ogcd methods of getting that job done.

- SCH has continuously had its DPS skills pruned expansion after expansion. For some reason SCH is the redheaded step child. Despite this, the jobs appeal for me hasn't lessened one bit. The reason for this is because I never cared for their DPS kit to begin with, and my biggest gripe probably has more to do with removal of skills from the pet hotbar, and when we asked for fairy glamours, combining and pruning the skills of Eos and Selene isn't what ANYONE had in mind.

SCH remains the most fun for me because even those with low perception like myself, will quickly notice that a lot of their GCD usage doesn't go towards damaging the enemy, but supporting the group. It might be the healer with the most demand for supportive GCDs. I don't count WHM afflatus skills due to Misery.

I find the the homogenization of healers doesn't really apply to me. If I felt they were this way, there wouldn't be an element of favoritism among them, or a preference based on the content. What I find to be homogenized with them is their DPS expectancy which boils down to spamming their ST while keeping up their one DoT. Again though, as a healer I couldn't care less about it.

Without it's cards and buff management AST plays pretty much exactly like a lillyless WHM with even less dps options. There is nothing unique about its abilities as a healer that make it stand out, with maybe the exception of Earthly Star, which you get to use once every minute.

SCH has many GCDs for support? There is like Chain Stratagem, which is the only truly unique Support ability the SCH has.
Asylum, Temperance and Collective Uncounscious all have similar effects to Sacred Soil and Fey Ilumination.

I do care about healer Dps in the measure that it's what I spend most of the time doing when I play healer.
Healing downtime is extremely prevalent and the only healer that can fill it with non-damaging abilities is AST. Hence why it feels like the busiest and most active healer of the three. I don't exactly like the new card system, but at least I have something else to manage beyond a single dot and Malefic spam.

I love SCH for its aesthetics, but spamming broil isn't exactly thrilling gameplay.

[Sloprano]

We're almost halfway through this expansion, what are your feelings on the changes and balances made to the healer jobs?

It's fucking terrible.

Right now it's a dead race if that is for the 5.0 Scholar changes or SE communication skills on the matter. You know, lets go with both. Both are fucking terrible.

The one thing I have a hard time believing none of the developers brought up during the changes was: Repetition.

Forget for a moment the "healer" label. Forget the green icon and what you sign up for. Think of your job. What do you do most of an Expert Dungeon? On average Broil III and AoW is the overwhelmingly majority of my gcd button presses. When I need to perform my role? I'll just press Excog, Sacred Soil, Seraph, Lustrate, Whispering Dawn, Indom, Recitation, Fey Blessing. All ogcd abilities. Which one? Doesn't really matter, they are all just variations of "Make health go up then go cool down."

Rare exception is when both tanks gets punted off by Ravana or both other alliances and every but me and my tank dies in 24-man. That is great, because I get to spend all my time, skill and mp on, you know, healing. But that is the exception, not the rule. Or script.txt.

It doesn't matter how fancy the hallways and bosses are: They will do the exact same thing every time and we always look for more to do each time. I'm reminded of a friend who nearly a year ago was deathly afraid to even sign up as healer. Today they use Swiftcast on Glare to make Expert go faster and complain about being bored. That really is what tanks and healers are down to: Tank cooldowns before, healers after an attack. While tanks gets dollar-store rotations SCH had it's arms and legs cut off with a rusty spork and left behind the dollar store.

BLMs? More and more explosions. Summoner? More and more summons. MCH? More and more tendonitis. But the very least they have something to build and work towards. I have nothing of the sort, neither the damage, healing or support is done in an interesting or meaningful way I feel I can do better next time. This is not PvP where we fight against erratic humans and simple skillsets aren't as noticable, we are fightning literal scripted seqences with coregraphed timelines in their txt.-file. After one fight I know when anything dangerous will happen next time, but unlike any DPS I'm not rewarded in a satisfying manner for it. Art of War on the packs; Broil III on the boss' sacks.

Let's look at SAM's Sen and Kenki. It's just reverse Aetherflow and Fey Gauge: Three stacks and a 100% gauge. But while SAM gradually gets ways to gain and use both faster and on more things SCH is completely stuck. A gauge that takes eons to fill to be used on two healing pet commands that are slow as mole asses to use. Aetherflow is near-fucking healing cooldown exclusivity except Energy Drain (which I will always remind was removed at 5.0 and took a MONTH to get back). Where's my additional ways to build gauge with a fuck-off Fey Beam dump or interesting things to use Aetherflow on like not-Ijatsu that changes depending on how many stacks you have left for solo play and when I master the job in a dungeon? Nowhere to be seen.

I believe the biggest misconception is that SE believe these jobs to be "Healers", just "healers." Healer #1, Healer #1 with fairy, Healer #1 with cards. True they got a green icon and when I sign up as one then nobody is gonna die on my watch. But the big difference is that these are "JOBS" first: AST, WHM and SCH. Combat jobs to be precise. I cannot remember a single time during the MSQ since 2.0 when on SCH I was stopped by a questgiver saying "Oh, there seems to be a mistake. This quest is for REAL jobs. Please come back on a red or blue job." Yet nothing SE says or does with the job reflect the absurd amount of combat on display and that will continue to do so. If they desperately wanted a boiled down, fat-free, run of the mill, beige-wearing healer with just rudimentary casted spell dot and aoe, then fucking give Conjurer some exclusive ogcds and call it a day, dont start wrecking complexity on jobs that have been enjoying it for years.


Shadowbringers was on it's way to be a late, but deserving entry in my "Top games of the decade", instead it got the Lifetime Achievement Award for "Most polarizing game ever." Where the art, the writing, the music, the design, even the pacing in an mmo, was all top-notch if even astounding. And then they threw all that goodwill in the bin by having a fuckton of combat and make the combat the worst part of it. It's such thoughtless change that the very thing we do the most is the worst.

[Videra]

Healers right now are the pits. They play pretty much exactly the same way as White Mage with some more clunk pending which you're playing and holy being the objectively superior AOE. The general homogenization is quite literally the worst thing about them, and it makes the healers feel like they have no identity outside of their class aesthetics. Exact same amount of DPS buttons. Both AST and SCH's major separating components got gutted and as a result, the classes themselves have been dumbed down to an extreme.

Allow me to get into more detail:

Scholar right now lacks any of the prior complexity that it once had in faerie management, your small but comfy DPS rotation, and the act of actually healing. You do not control Eos or Selene anymore to any degree, and their abilities are tied to your OGCDs for some unholy reasons - you can no longer perform targeted embraces. You're down to one dot and one nuke, which in and of itself is horrible - you can't even use miasma 2 to weave anymore because it doesn't exist and Art of War sucks. The act of healing in and of itself feels dumbed down and homogenized because of how your cooldowns now work, given that you can't independently control Selene or Eos anymore and they don't have their own GCD. A big part of the appeal, for me, was that you could be doing other stuff while Eos slings out whispering dawn - you were actively controlling two characters at once. I'll admit that I'm more SCH biased, and I didn't play AST much - but as I understand AST had a lot more going on with royal road in the old days.

Also remember when shields didn't suck? Remember when we could spread those juicy critlos?

Edit: ALSO ALSO - SOMETIMES WHISPERING DAWN OR YOUR OTHER FAERIE ABILITIES JUST GHOST AND STILL GO ON COOLDOWN ANYWAY.

[PharisHanasaki]

- AST has always been benched because of it insufferable card mechanic. It sucked pre ShB, and it still sucks now. This job is actually pretty fun to play when you take the cards right out of it.

Have you thought that AST may just not be for you? And you know, that's fine. We don't have to like all 3 healers, they are there to give us variety so you can pick the one you like the most.

[Barraind]

Forget for a moment the "healer" label. Forget the green icon and what you sign up for. Think of your job. What do you do most of an Expert Dungeon? On average Broil III and AoW is the overwhelmingly majority of my gcd button presses. When I need to perform my role? I'll just press Excog, Sacred Soil, Seraph, Lustrate, Whispering Dawn, Indom, Recitation, Fey Blessing. All ogcd abilities. Which one? Doesn't really matter, they are all just variations of "Make health go up then go cool down."

Sadly, this isnt a 14 problem, its a current era MMO problem.

I think the only game left where your healers arent primarily doing damage in small group content is Everquest, and thats really only the case with one of its three healers, because thats 95% of its toolkit (and they're probably pulling or helping pull in any situation you arent splitting mobs) because thats the class.

This generation of MMO replaced having to manage resources and make conscious tradeoffs on efficiency versus burst, and having to effectively crowd control (you know, the third leg of the holy trinity that really doesnt exist outside of pvp) for "haha, group content go brrrrrrrrr".

And then when current gen tries to replicate those things for nostalgia, you get Pagos, and its insufferable because that style of combat is balanced around 2.5 second gcd's, typing in chat, and an APM average thats 20-25% of todays games (because every button press mattered) This generation of MMO's gets broken in half by conceptual design of traditional MMO group content.

[Esmoire]

Have you thought that AST may just not be for you? And you know, that's fine. We don't have to like all 3 healers, they are there to give us variety so you can pick the one you like the most.

Yeah... I am worried about stuff like this. Like I seriously hope they are really careful what voices they listen to, at least, how to interpret it. A lot of the feedback about AST is valid: at 5.0, it was super clunky (to some extent, still is now), some people wish the cards effects were more interesting or varied, they wish they had more MP to do the parts of the job they like.

Though like, for me, the cards and the super fast speed are the parts of AST I love. I liked the cards back then, and I still like them now. Like, I'd love to have something more like the old cards with a few changes, and I'd like the time mage aspect fleshed out some more, but I love the general idea of the card system, the fast pace, the fantasy of the job, etc. At some point people wanting the cards out of AST is like wanting the speed taken out of monk.