Do you want healers to be reworked from the ground up?

[Semirhage]

I understand where this is coming from but I think perhaps the term overpowered is not the right one to use to describe this.

Specifically in terms of AST, it's not that it contributed a crazy amount more rDPS than the other healers or anything but rather it's just always felt better to play than WHM. The QoL for AST has been huge from the Malefic cast time reduction to the instant CU application. By comparison WHM feels clunky and awkward, choosing between horrendous clipping/dropped casts to move and not efficiently using all your oGCD potential.

Sure, I'm not certain there's a widely-accepted specific term for what I'm aiming at so I use overpowered. "Puts out similar numbers when compared to the zero-utility healer, plus is allowed to have a metric ton of utility on top of that while having no commensurate weaknesses" is what I'm aiming at.

Since the community is going to (and in the past, has) scream(ed) bloody murder if the damage/healing numbers are significantly different, why not give WHM an actual identity with some bloody utility then? You (in the general, Square Enix definition of you) can't both declare that one of your classes has the identity of "being good at the baseline damage and healing and nothing else", while also not making it stand out against its competition with either of those things, and refusing to allow it to because the other two healers will complain if you do.

I've been railing against this forum's WHM Is The Baby Healer And Should Remain So garbage for years now. It will -never- have an identity as long as its "strengths" are the video game equivalent of "having a metabolism" and "converting oxygen into CO2". Congratulations, everyone can do that. Oh the other two healers can also walk and talk? Why ever take the base model then?

[Anhra]

Lovely job design dear but unfortunately it wont work on a game structure such as the one we have in ff14

How will it not work? pretty much most, if not any MMORPG that has been released before and during the lifetime of FFXIV have given their healers a decent skillkit which had a great equilibrium of both combat spells and utility/heals which fairly complimented each other WHILE still being unique from one another. Sure, it requires some effort, but any kind of change does. If some free2play MMO can pull something like that off, i am certain that Square Enix should be able to as well.

[Veis_Alveare]

Sure, I'm not certain there's a widely-accepted specific term for what I'm aiming at so I use overpowered. "Puts out similar numbers when compared to the zero-utility healer, plus is allowed to have a metric ton of utility on top of that while having no commensurate weaknesses" is what I'm aiming at.

Since the community is going to (and in the past, has) scream(ed) bloody murder if the damage/healing numbers are significantly different, why not give WHM an actual identity with some bloody utility then? You (in the general, Square Enix definition of you) can't both declare that one of your classes has the identity of "being good at the baseline damage and healing and nothing else", while also not making it stand out against its competition with either of those things, and refusing to allow it to because the other two healers will complain if you do.

I've been railing against this forum's WHM Is The Baby Healer And Should Remain So garbage for years now. It will -never- have an identity as long as its "strengths" are the video game equivalent of "having a metabolism" and "converting oxygen into CO2". Congratulations, everyone can do that. Oh the other two healers can also walk and talk? Why ever take the base model then?

I certainly agree at this point.

I will say, as someone who's progged like every raid tier since 3.0 as a healer main, WHM used to have it's advantages when it came to healing. Before AST got Star it lacked a real response to Cure 3 so WHM kind of had the identity as the big heal healer.

Now it's like they're trying to act as if they haven't significantly buffed AST abd SCH (at least in terms of effectiveness, if not engagement) but left WHM back where it used to be.

Is the logic "well this iteration of WHM worked at one point so naturally it still will" or something? I don't know but I can't see myself going back to WHM, especially with the new Bottomless MP version of AST we have right now. It'd literally be a detriment in all but dungeons.

[Maltothoris]

I certainly agree at this point.

I will say, as someone who's progged like every raid tier since 3.0 as a healer main, WHM used to have it's advantages when it came to healing. Before AST got Star it lacked a real response to Cure 3 so WHM kind of had the identity as the big heal healer.

Problem there is the fight design kinda had to accommodate really for cure 3 and the only instances of there really were A3s 6 splashes in a row, A8s short needle spam and J-waves at the end. In every other department it was severely lacking. It was the lowest dps of the three overall, it had the worst mp economy of the three in Heavensward, due to its outdated proc system back then, plus Astro had the 20 percent balance in 3.4 back then which more than made up for the lack of a strong heal bomb but back then Sch and Astro had the ogcds to cover for it, especially in the form of fey-illumination roused Whispering Dawn, Collective and Indom. Also, there were no huge instances of Heavy consistent aoes in Creator like there were in A3s or A8s.

In all honesty, I expect some hasty changes in 5.4 for sch and then in another repeat some changes to Whm in 5.5 before the next expansion.

ANd if anything they should just reduced PoM to either 2 minutes or 90 seconds to make it align with raid buffs.

[Veis_Alveare]

Problem there is the fight design kinda had to accommodate really for cure 3 and the only instances of there really were A3s 6 splashes in a row, A8s short needle spam and J-waves at the end. In every other department it was severely lacking. It was the lowest dps of the three overall, it had the worst mp economy of the three in Heavensward, due to its outdated proc system back then, plus Astro had the 20 percent balance in 3.4 back then which more than made up for the lack of a strong heal bomb but back then Sch and Astro had the ogcds to cover for it, especially in the form of fey-illumination roused Whispering Dawn, Collective and Indom. Also, there were no huge instances of Heavy consistent aoes in Creator like there were in A3s or A8s.

In all honesty, I expect some hasty changes in 5.4 for sch and then in another repeat some changes to Whm in 5.5 before the next expansion.

ANd if anything they should just reduced PoM to either 2 minutes or 90 seconds to make it align with raid buffs.

Theres a difference between having the highest potential, effective HPS with relatively little issue (something WHM has dominated in the past) and fights requiring high, sustained healing just to clear. For a long time many people progged on WHM only to swap to AST once they got comfy with things - I know, I did it too. The thing is you didn't need 20% balance to clear, taking AST was more for farming/speed and WHM was still the safety for a lot of time.

The issue is now there isn't even that incentive to use WHM. Honestly the only reason to play WHM now (other than a sort of job loyalty or class fantasy) is just... being bad at AST?

I'd love a PoM reduction, specifically to align with 2min buffs. I also don't expect to see any real work on any healers until 6.0. They might slap some bandaids on them (and those bandaids might even work out to be awesome, looking at you Malefic cast time reduction) but I think that's all we'll see.

[glamazon]

But if it was left like it used to be and it was the big heal healer and now every healer can heal effectively then just what do you mean?

All are now big heal healers and that’s good. (Well asterisk for scholar).

[Veis_Alveare]

But if it was left like it used to be and it was the big heal healer and now every healer can heal effectively then just what do you mean?

All are now big heal healers and that’s good. (Well asterisk for scholar).

Because it's all relative.

Nothing may need the raw HPS that WHM can bring but that doesn't mean it still wasn't at least a bit of identity.

Right now a WHM could Plenary+Cure3 but an AST could pop a Star and Horoscope which is far more preferable. WHM doesn't bring the most of anything at this point, at least nothing meaningful.

[Mortex]

The problems are numerous with whm at this point. Weave timings sucks hard, blood lily is a 300 dps lose, whm deals in a lot of fights without massive optimization less or same dmg as astro that doesn’t use cards. 1,5 sec on malefic is the reason for that, just having the possibility to walk and cast in a lot of mechanics makes it way stronger. Astro divination and cards are always on buff uptime too, PoM isn’t with 150 seconds cd. And I just hate the philosophy easy healer for all types of situations with whm. Every job should have a learning curve from easy to hard whm shouldn’t be a exception.

[Ceasaria]

The problems are numerous with whm at this point. Weave timings sucks hard, blood lily is a 300 dps lose, whm deals in a lot of fights without massive optimization less or same dmg as astro that doesn’t use cards. 1,5 sec on malefic is the reason for that, just having the possibility to walk and cast in a lot of mechanics makes it way stronger. Astro divination and cards are always on buff uptime too, PoM isn’t with 150 seconds cd. And I just hate the philosophy easy healer for all types of situations with whm. Every job should have a learning curve from easy to hard whm shouldn’t be a exception.

Hmm, I don't know, WHM has already many free instant spells he can cast every min for weaving (and it's the only thing WHM has to really master).
if you give 1,5 sec cast time for Whm, you need then to give him a more complex gameplay (resulting a high Apm).
You can't have all the benefits without counterparts, and yet this is what we had and continue to have with each expansion (like aggro and mana management removed, dps actions nerf, etc.).

For Blood lily, I though people were happy we have a dps reward for using heals actions ? (so it's normal to lose a bit of dps at the end)
And I am all for it, having combo or interesting combinations between dps and heals actions.

I'am just agree for the PoM 150s cd, it's not good.

[Liam_Harper]

Hmm, I don't know, WHM has already many free instant spells he can cast every min for weaving (and it's the only thing WHM has to really master).

WhM has just over 4 per minute. Depending on the fight and heal load, you might want to weave any number of 2 Benison, Assize, Tetra, Bene, Lucid, Thin Air, Temperance, Asylum, Plenary, Surecast and PoM within that minute. There just aren't enough windows. Look at any high WhM logs and they're missing lots of oGcd uses and still clipping a few times because the only way to optimize is simply cut oGCD's and let the AST (who can use their full toolkit freely) handle it. It's not "mastering" it as much as learning to mitigate the hindrance from clunky class design as much as possible.

More APM and a bit more complexity would be fine, but WhM already has no utility and no shields. I don't think smoother weave/mobility would make it OP.