New healer: Sage. Barrier healer.

[Kabooa]

It does make me wonder if SE is going to open offensive capability a little bit more for healers, and there is still much to see. I am going to guess to bring a pair of shades for their LB3. In any case I am excited to see more, and that's a good thing.

If they plan on reigning back how versatile a kit has to be, that frees up action slots. What they spend it on is where it's going to matter.

[Absurdity]

1. Shielding is not that useful outside of prog and once you have said content on farm, GCD shielding is hardly ever needed. People get better gear and have more HP and less likely to get one-shotted. At this point, regens are infinitely better because they are MP-friendly and they passively heal everyone back to fill HP, which is why Diu. AST is generally the better of the two.

2. This could lead to AST being worse or better than WHM bringing us back to SB where WHM could be neglected by the community. This would heavily depend on what they do to AST and if they intend on changing WHM. The same thing will happen to Sage and SCH as well.

1. It currently isn't yes, that's why I'm hoping for changes that actually make shields matter throughout the entire raid's lifespan. Who knows, maybe mechanics that deal weak party damage but apply a nasty debuff if they aren't negated by shields.

2. I see it more as a potential positive because now you only have to balance healers within their specific niche. Before they needed AST to be on par with WHM and SCH, now it theoretically only needs to be on par with what WHM does. This does of course only work if barrier healers actually have their uses and aren't just relegated to bench warmers once prog is over.

If they plan on reigning back how versatile a kit has to be, that frees up action slots. What they spend it on is where it's going to matter.

We can only hope. As much as I would like this to be a thing, I remain sceptical until we get more information.

[Ultimatecalibur]

If they plan on reigning back how versatile a kit has to be, that frees up action slots. What they spend it on is where it's going to matter.

I fully expect both SCH and SGE to get systems that reward them for Barriers breaking. I could see SCH getting rewarded with Aetherflow stacks when a Barrier breaks and SGE powering up a super laser attack similar to Afflatus Misery based on properly shielding.

[LadyKairi]

They wanted to do the same thing with MT/OT and look how well THAT turned out. As always, keeping my expectations low.

They can do that all they want in the DF, but player statics will always choose the optimized jobs.

I mean, fair. I was just pointing out information/answering a question, not arguing for or against.

However, as far as I remember, the tanks never had tools that they couldn't use based on what their co-tank was. Regardless of what tank you got, you could still play unbothered. For healers, though, if you have two shielders, the shields don't stack. Rendering one of the healers' shields useless. They could change it, I guess. Either way, I don't really care. Not as long as AST is still fun to play and sage has interesting gameplay. -shrug-

[RyuDragnier]

Well I hope they make shields relevant again? Aside from week 1 and some parts in ultimate, shields are useless

I'm suspecting they'll attempt to up the amount of damage we take again. Though if I were them, I'd make all raidwides and tank busters Max HP percentages. Large ones at that. Imagine if the raidwide always did 80% of the party's health unless mitigated. Suddenly, shielding is way more important. Imagine if that tank buster did 110% of the tank's Max HP. You'd need shields and mitigation on them, heavy doses, to keep them up. Things like that which suddenly turn shields from jokes to mandatory to survive. As a side effect, burst healing becomes needed more often.

[Absurdity]

Imagine if the raidwide always did 80% of the party's health unless mitigated.

That would change exactly nothing unless they happen in fast succession. 20% HP left still means you're not dead and can be healed up easily with regen and direct healing, provided healers have enough time.


The same goes for 110% hp tank busters, that is not nearly enough to kill you through personal mitigation so they would have to happen so frequently that you literally had no cooldowns available to mitigate it yourself.

[RyuDragnier]

That would change exactly nothing unless they happen in fast succession. 20% HP left still means you're not dead and can be healed up easily with regen and direct healing, provided healers have enough time.

The plan is unavoidable damage often, forcing healers to have to do their job fast and often.

[Payadopa]

I just hope I get different abilities to at least the shield healers and only have to share my kit with WHM. Let's face it, both designs will be extremely similar again. Sage looks awesome, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Videra]

The plan is unavoidable damage often, forcing healers to have to do their job fast and often.

This is something Square Enix will not do, and you know it as well as I do.

[RyuDragnier]

This is something Square Enix will not do, and you know it as well as I do.

Unfortunately for SE, that is the only way for shields to become valuable, to make it so you have to actually SHIELD damage. Until that day comes, they will be struggling with shields being useful. As much as they don't want to take the dive, we know that to fix their woes over healers worrying about doing damage, they have to actually make it so healers have to worry about damage.

They've already proven they're willing to do it with BLU healing. BLU tanks take enough damage fast enough to where they can actually die. Gobskin is insanely valuable there due to that reason both for party shielding and helping the tank survive a little longer (all the parties I was in the other healer would spam Gobskin while I had to focus on Pom Cure until we unlocked Strotam).