Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

[Liam_Harper]

There is already a heal powerhouse, there is already a shield powerhouse, and there is already a healer that can sufficiently compliment either of the first two, with a card/buff gimmick to supplement what it lacks in healing.

Actually, AST takes the crown in all categories. I'm not sure where the idea that WHM is the "heal powerhouse" or SCH is the "shield king" comes from when AST has free oGCD's, the strongest aoe heal in the game with Star, COpp and CU which are half the cd of Seraph, a far superior Plenary and Tetra and it loses the least potency for GCD heals. Not to mention its higher rDps and full mobility. This is why top raid comps are nearly always AST + Other.

Healer balance is fairly terrible right now. They gave AST everything.

[Absurdity]

Healer balance is fairly terrible right now. They gave AST everything.

That's the big problem with AST.

Since people seem to think that you need a regen and a shield healer in a party AST needs the ability to do both, since it has the ability to perform one or the other it needs to be competent at both (yeah...no, it does not) so what ends up happening is that AST becomes too powerful because both SE and a lot of players seem to think that AST needs healing powerful enough to compete with WHM and shields powerful enough to compete with SCH.

[Ceasaria]

Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

- Already remove one of the two stances of AST and then create two groups of healers : HoT|Direct healers / Shield|Preventive healers.
- Reverse the homogenization.
- Rework healers so they fit their category (like it was in ARR or HW without counting AST).
- Finally add the 4th healer.

[AnotherPerson]

Actually, AST takes the crown in all categories. I'm not sure where the idea that WHM is the "heal powerhouse" or SCH is the "shield king" comes from when AST has free oGCD's, the strongest aoe heal in the game with Star, COpp and CU which are half the cd of Seraph, a far superior Plenary and Tetra and it loses the least potency for GCD heals. Not to mention its higher rDps and full mobility. This is why top raid comps are nearly always AST + Other.

Healer balance is fairly terrible right now. They gave AST everything.

Didn't you know? AST gets nerfed to Oblivion every beginning of the expansion and will eventually catch up a couple of patches after to being one of the best again. That might change with a new healer where healer balance gets properly sorted, but if it becomes a trend there's always room to meme.

As for the 'heal powerhouse' they probably refer to on demand quick powerful heals they can give out (aka GCD heals) cause of their nearly infinite MP supply when things are not going well, though AST's MP rework puts them to a very close 2nd here because of how overtuned they got.

[Absurdity]

Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

- Already remove one of the two stances of AST and then create two groups of healers : HoT|Direct healers / Shield|Preventive healers.

This only works if they actually make shielding have a stronger impact again, otherwise you end up with some healers simply being inferior to the HoT/direct heal counterpart.

[QooEr]

As for the 'heal powerhouse' they probably refer to on demand quick powerful heals they can give out (aka GCD heals) cause of their nearly infinite MP supply when things are not going well, though AST's MP rework puts them to a very close 2nd here because of how overtuned they got.

the only thing white mage has over astro is cure 3 tbh. recovering with ast is a lot easier than whm, since whm is mostly confined to the gcd for heals (meaning it cant get everyone to full health really fast except with cure3). Ast heals on the other hand, are mostly mp free, have low cooldowns, and since draw also has a low cooldown they can get their mp back a lot faster. Neutral sect aspected helios spam is actually stronger and cheaper than cure 3 spam, and when it comes to basic gcds, whm and ast are about even with medica(2) and (asp) helios, except ast has lightspeed for six instant helios while whm has at most 3 instant raptures. id even say ast now has a better mp economy than white mage.

So no, whm really isnt a heal powerhouse. it also wasnt one in stormblood. the only thing it has going for it healing wise is cure 3.

[AnotherPerson]

the only thing white mage has over astro is cure 3 tbh. recovering with ast is a lot easier than whm, since whm is mostly confined to the gcd for heals (meaning it cant get everyone to full health really fast except with cure3). Ast heals on the other hand, are mostly mp free, have low cooldowns, and since draw also has a low cooldown they can get their mp back a lot faster. Neutral sect aspected helios spam is actually stronger and cheaper than cure 3 spam, and when it comes to basic gcds, whm and ast are about even with medica(2) and (asp) helios, except ast has lightspeed for six instant helios while whm has at most 3 instant raptures. id even say ast now has a better mp economy than white mage.

So no, whm really isnt a heal powerhouse. it also wasnt one in stormblood. the only thing it has going for it healing wise is cure 3.

Yes and no. I'm referring to why people thought WHM is a heal powerhouse in this expansion. In terms of heal powerhouse, I'm referring to how much MP they have that they can throw for healing continuously. In terms of healing everyone to full, WHM and AST are equally powerful, but WHM has a slight advantage over -x- seconds. You're right that the only thing White mage has over Astro is cure III, but that's really only the case after AST's MP rework, but before that it was a different story. For AoE healing, White Mage generally have MP to use their MP-expensive heals. Cure III helps a lot for GCD heals when you have no other abilities available because it becomes very efficient for immediate healing when grouped together, but they also have Rapture + Assize (45 sec cooldown means it comes up fairly quickly) + Plenary Indulgence + Asylum + Temperance. Asylum, Temperance, and Plenary Indulgence all work to make your GCD heals much stronger, which is why for most content, using lilies is enough if you use one of those with them. Medica II then becomes supercharged healing if you need more healing than what lilies can do. Regen becomes an excessive heal - a 500 potency increase instead of using Afflatus Solace. You are right for cases where AST can get people's HP to a safer margin faster in planned scenarios (Earthly Star, Horoscope, and Neutral Sect), but in terms of raw HP recovery, WHM still beats them by a mile with Plenary Indulgence supercharging their AoE heals for 10 seconds. Heck, if you have enough spell speed, you can probably throw in a lily at the last second so Plenary Indulgence's effect could be used 5 times in 10 seconds - giving you a maximum of 1200 potency AoE heal in addition to your GCD heals. The second thing to note is that while White Mage does seem to have very heavy MP expensive healing spells, their GCD lilies offsets this very subtly. This is because their natural MP regen - at least 200 MP - would tick in roughly the time they use a lily since they are on the GCD, making lilies a MP positive healing resource. On the other hand, the other healing jobs would use the time to weave in a DPS attack to heal with their oGCDs (ex: Malefic or Ruin II) or clip their heal. This is also what makes Thin Air so powerful - for 12 seconds your MP expensive spells - including ressing - is free. At the same time, you gain MP from your natural MP regeneration, which becomes a net positive MP increase in addition to whatever MP heavy healing GCDs you had to use. This is especially the case where a White Mage swiftcasts a ress in Thin Air.

This is also why AST had some MP issues in the past - they can weave their abundant oGCD healing spells freely using Malefic, but they would still be eating up their MP without another source to regain it outside of lucid dreaming if they don't have enough piety to boost their natural MP regeneration, and when they did need to GCD heal, their MP would be heavily spent so they don't have a lot of on demand healing available, especially if they have to give resses.

This is what made White Mages get a lot of extra power for raw heals if all other oGCDs healing tools get consumed. When the situation becomes bleak and they are forced to GCD heal, White Mage is generally able to keep things going as their GCD heals are strong enough and plentiful. With the MP changes, AST is pretty much in the same boat as their MP Expensive GCD heals were cut across the board while getting an additional 1600 MP per minute.

[Ceasaria]

Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

- Already remove one of the two stances of AST and then create two groups of healers : HoT|Direct healers / Shield|Preventive healers.
- Reverse the homogenization.
- Rework healers so they fit their category (like it was in ARR or HW without counting AST).
- Finally add the 4th healer.

I'm quoting myself, but thanks Yoshi for creating two categories (as it was in ARR) and moving AST in pure healer category.
Thank you for Sage job. The video and skills are not exceptional, but it's still nice.
Now, I hope the gameplay will really improve and be back as it was before.

[BaconBits]

I'm probably preaching to the choir when I say this, but please take time to temper your expectations going into this new expansion. Maybe they'll take time to address issues such as healer gameplay consisting of 121111 (with heals sprinkled in ), maybe they'll give us more of the same shadowbringers gameplay but with a shiny new toy to distract the masses. I'd like to believe they'll do the former, but as they've proven multiple times now, history tends to repeat itself.

[Risvertasashi]

Actually, AST takes the crown in all categories. I'm not sure where the idea that WHM is the "heal powerhouse" or SCH is the "shield king" comes from when AST has free oGCD's, the strongest aoe heal in the game with Star, COpp and CU which are half the cd of Seraph, a far superior Plenary and Tetra and it loses the least potency for GCD heals. Not to mention its higher rDps and full mobility. This is why top raid comps are nearly always AST + Other.

Healer balance is fairly terrible right now. They gave AST everything.

true-ish.

Everything you say about AST's capabilities is right on. Because WHM is still the most popular and populous healer, AST is just flat out better/"OP" to at least get people to play it. Combined with the expac's SCH nerfs means SCH is no longer the "mandatory" healer for high end comps, and it's now AST instead.

However, in that "other" slot, SCH and WHM are pretty decently competitive with each other. The end result is a meta where any healer can be played and most people aren't feeling the pressure to switch that characterized Heavensward and Stormblood.

So, in that sense, the balance is not so bad. It does mean Scholar can't have the buffs its aficionados periodically ask for on these forums, however. And still, having one healer clearly be on top obviously isn't ideal.

~

But it looks like this is finally being fixed. But just as many SCH mains were very upset with ShB, there's going to be no small amount of hurt feelings/salt/etc with AST now. Still, with any luck things will be much improved from 6.0 onward.