Lets all take a deep breath

[ty_taurus]

It’s only been a few hours and already there are a lot of players having panic attacks over the AST changes and Sage.

This is a calm reminder that we still know almost nothing about what to expect. There is so much left in the air, and the best thing we can do right now is patiently wait for more details in May.

Yes, healing has not been handled with each expansion in some way or another. This is a big opportunity to change things. From what we know, this could be the big step in the right direction, or just a continuation of what’s already occurred. There’s no use worrying about theoreticals though, so the best thing we can do is be patient.

[althenawhm]

"Hey, maybe something nice will happen!" Why the heck would anything nice ever happen?!

[ty_taurus]

"Hey, maybe something nice will happen!" Why the heck would anything nice ever happen?!

Then I guess be miserable and hate everything that will ever happen to the game no matter what it is?

[ASkellington]

Then I guess be miserable and hate everything that will ever happen to the game no matter what it is?

I think the point is /s

As for "being miserable and hate everything that will ever happen" to be fair to healers, Square has not made the future look bright:

SCH were told last patch to "do less damage and more healing" when most of the complaints for all of this expansion is that "we have too many healing tools we need more [damage] to heal". AST becoming a pure healer also doesn't inspire confidence, at least to me, because AST currently already plays like WHM (Benefic 1/2 = Cure 1/2, Asp. Helios/Helios = Medica 2/1, Asp. Benefic = Regen, Divine Bension = Celestial Intersection) and since the rework of their cards was a major miss, I'm not very hopeful with a rework of their healing tool kit (and if they don't make it so AST plays different to WHM other than cards then it really would be WHM w/Cards). And WHM...

Point is, realistically, a lot of people do not have any hope that these changes are positive (I for one am hoping we get more time based healing as AST, more abilities like Earthly Star where if we wait we get a bigger heal or have more abilities like Horoscope where we can buff a heal to detonate it later), Square hasn't given us any confidence in their ability a la this expansion, and AST is getting changed (for better or worse we don't know) and people are allowed to not like the change. Even if they did what I hope for, some people may not like that idea of healing and would prefer AST as it is now, which is fair if the complaints about cards in 5.0 vs 3.0-4.5 is allowed.

Tl;dr its really, really hard for people to look on the bright side of things right now and they're keeping their expectations as low as possible.

As for me, I know what I want out of a reworked AST - make our overlapped healing skills with WHM entirely different (reworked card system would be a bonus not a requirement).
I know what I want out of SGE - let it have a distinct shielding so it doesn't overlap with SCH like AST does with WHM now.
Am I going to get it? I sincerely have my doubts.

[Karshan]

It’s only been a few hours and already there are a lot of players having panic attacks over the AST changes and Sage.

This is a calm reminder that we still know almost nothing about what to expect. There is so much left in the air, and the best thing we can do right now is patiently wait for more details in May.

Yes, healing has not been handled with each expansion in some way or another. This is a big opportunity to change things. From what we know, this could be the big step in the right direction, or just a continuation of what’s already occurred. There’s no use worrying about theoreticals though, so the best thing we can do is be patient.

In all honesty, every 1st sight fear about BLU and limited classes (minigame, etc etc) turned out to be true. The fears after the 5.0 job action test run from he youtubers as well. Against everyone who was professing calm and moderation and wait & see.

I don't want to be negative, this is not a reason to be SURE this will go south, but they have exactly given us ZERO reason to trust them in the past and to think the other way around (all good and happy) is more plausible. So maybe don't bash too hard, but don't hope ANYTHING either cause disapointment might be crushing.

[Saefinn]

-Square Enix announces change that makes healers concerned-
-Healers complain-
"Please wait and see you're overreacting"
-Turns out healers were right-
"Maybe they'll fix it"

Repeat cycle.

Admittedly I can see how the changes have potential for being a positive direction for healers. Because I think the "WHM mode" and "SCH mode" mentality of AST sets it back fully embracing its own identity and if anything I think 5.0 changes that move some of the Nocturnal's sects advantages over to Diurnal I think has room for it to do that. If done right, this could mean AST can embrace it's own identity more. If not don't right, this could mean AST is WHM with cards. And SAG would then be Gundam SCH.

Whilst I think the announced changes if done right would be a good thing for healers and healer balance, I fear they're not going to do enough to make it work properly and AST is just going to end up needlessly loosing a niche.

My worry comes out of the fact that it feels like the devs look at healer problems, they see the problem and adjust the bit that on paper sounds like it'll fix the problem but doesn't. Taking a look at all this talk of healing and DPS focus. On paper it looks like the 5.0 changes would "give them more of a healing focus and less of a DPS focus" because they took away DPS spells and gave more healing spells. When in reality it doesn't work that way and if anything made them less healing focused and more DPS focused. Whether that was the devs' intention and whether it was to simplify DPS I realise is up for debate.

But what I could see happening is, they take away shield healing aspects from AST and still make SCH and SAG good "pure" healers. If SCH and SAG are good enough pure healers, then you could find AST and WHM get left behind, which has happened to WHM before, where WHM's identity as a 'pure' healer was erased by the fact SCH can pure heal well enough. Or they just all end up well rounded and this distinction of "shield" and "pure" healer is completely redundant and they've not achieved what they set out to do.


However, /because/ I can see the potential if they do it right that I am going to concede and say "I will reserve judgement until we know more" but for certain I raise concerns, because we know their track record with healers and it's easy to see where the pitfalls are.

I am hoping this ends up being "this is where they give healers a shake up & the direction they need" as opposed to "devs hang onto concepts that are no longer relevant and healers remain a problem because they don't understand how people play them and not address the real issues".

[Heilstos]

I think the flexibility of the healer composition is too much influenced by this doctrine.

Here are my concerns:

1) Story-relevant content MUST be able to be created without shields. Because the DF can put together an AST with a WHM. We now have a case where you just don't have any shields with either healer in place. (Except for neutral stance here)
2) For the raid scene it will say that a healer player is forced to choose a healer from each column. So to be more precise you have to choose a "shield" healer, ie SGE or SCH. And in order to use the "pure healing" you have to go for AST and WHM. For many high-level players, this won't be a problem. At least that's what I suspected. But for the people who have a MAIN job. It's a slap in the face, because the healers don't have the freedom to choose the job that the tanks have because of these "pure" vs "shield" thoughts. This makes me a little sad for the moment.
3) I read in some threads that the balance of the two stances is difficult to know. The current status of the AST showed that this could be done well. And both stances could feel their job to a great extent. And I think the balance team did a good job here. So it didn't feel like a nightmare. Instead, we had more problems with the time extension capabilities in HW / SB, which completely disrupted the balance between Noc and Diu. (Here I have to say in favor of Diu!)
Every stance feels its demands at the moment.

But it's too early to worry about it. That's what Hiro'to said and here I agree with that regarding! Let's see what will happen to all the healers. I think the SCH and the WHM will also have to give spring for the niche of the SGE.

I have already posted this in the thread "How could you do this to AST" but I am also presenting this in this general thread. Because I think that the AST thread is only there for people who want to let out their anger and sadness.

[ty_taurus]

Its not really about looking at the bright side though.

Here’s the thing, we know only 3 things:
- WHM/AST will focus on regens while SCH/SAG will focus on shields.
- AST doesn’t have Nocturnal Sect.
- Sage seemingly has a Cure, Gravity, Glare, and Adloquium equivalent.

That’s really not a lot of information to go on. It was different than when we saw the list of actions for healers in shadowbringers, and saw what was literally removed.

We’re mainly getting mad about theory with very little to go off of.

[Videra]

Yeah, we're not playing this accursed "wait and see" game again. First sight fears of BLU were true, first sight fears of 5.X healers were REALLY true, and I have no doubt that the trepidation long-time healer mains like myself are now feeling will end up being salient. So, forgive me for sounding jaded - I'm not going to hold my breath.

[Saefinn]

Its not really about looking at the bright side though.

Here’s the thing, we know only 3 things:
- WHM/AST will focus on regens while SCH/SAG will focus on shields.
- AST doesn’t have Nocturnal Sect.
- Sage seemingly has a Cure, Gravity, Glare, and Adloquium equivalent.

That’s really not a lot of information to go on. It was different than when we saw the list of actions for healers in shadowbringers, and saw what was literally removed.

We’re mainly getting mad about theory with very little to go off of.

I mean, I think in fairness, as it stands the "pure healer" and "shield healer" mentalities don't really exist anymore in how the jobs are played, so knowing this much actually does give us something to go on. For them to put an emphasis on it is an indicator that they're not understanding how healers are played.

This distinction hasn't been relevant since 2.0/3.0. This is because "shield" healing has been relegated to "it's a buffer, my real heals are oGCD's", you don't depend on your shields that much. And the other problem is, they've held out on their mentality in design for a while now, they held WHM back on the basis it's "the pure healer" and didn't give it some of the love in needed like "pure healer" still meant something.

So unless they address this problem, which they've yet to give an indication that they will, then their goals would fall flat. I am hoping that they do address this problem. But nothing yet to me suggests that they would, because they've avoided it thus far. But addressing this problem I think is what's needed to make their direction work. Because the "shield healer" and "pure healer" isn't a change in direction. Because they still consider SCH a shield healer and WHM are pure healer. And AST is both.

The fact this mentality remains despite the existing problems. Removing Nocturnal in favour of a new shield job doesn't address this problem. The silver lining I do see is that with AST trying to be both did mess with a dichotomy that used to work. How they've presented it seems to suggest they want to make that dichotomy work again. But it is a two-part issue, because it wasn't /just/ AST that messed with this dichotomy. SCH changes messed with it too.

Either they can address the issue by:
- Doing the Shield/Pure healer dichotomy. This will work if they make shield healers shield dependent. Their pure healing needs to be weak enough so shields get factored by players.
- Healers are designed to be well-rounded. Meaning they're roughly as equally good as each other in all situations and there's no need for healer synergy. Uniqueness is then established in how their kits are played and how they feel to play. EG: WHM needs to feel powerful, SCH needs to feel tactical, AST needs to feel technical.

At the moment I think we're in a limbo of the two. Healer changes over the years has made them too efficient for the pure/shield healer approach to work, but devs still want to keep the pure/shield healer mentality.