Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

[Side-Eye]

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.

I don't agree that AST is the best at everything, but I fully support giving the other heal jobs more interesting DPS tools -- I just regret that astro's card system was distilled into such a boring mess. Maybe I just don't care as much about optimization, but the old card system was more interesting, regardless of it being less than optimized for DPS.

[FoxCh40s]

I don't agree that AST is the best at everything, but I fully support giving the other heal jobs more interesting DPS tools -- I just regret that astro's card system was distilled into such a boring mess. Maybe I just don't care as much about optimization, but the old card system was more interesting, regardless of it being less than optimized for DPS.

I'm sorry man, but they really did give Astro everything, and if they hadn't have taken away the old cards it would have been near play scheme wise to 3.0 Scholar; exceedingly complex and a high skill ceiling to pull off that makes it truly satisfying.

Played Scholar since 2.2, was a White Mage all through Beta and on till 2.2.

I HAD to go Astro not to loose my mind, it was THAT boring on Scholar. I love Scholar, but Astro is the only Healer job that is remotely engaging anymore.

[Mortex]

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.

We will see. At this point it’s a time honored tradition that astro sucks hard for the two raid tiers in a expansion only too get buffed to outshine all. And seeing how square talked about aetherflow that should be more used for heals then dmg. Excuse me when I don’t have high hope in the dev team

[hythrain]

I'll admit I've not read the entire thread (I only read the OP), so this might've been brought up buuuut...

WoW has 6 different healers. If they can manage 6, SE should be able to manage 4. If they can't, there's some huge issues there.

[Hanayumi]

Would say if they decide not to work out Schs kit, it'll certainly be left in the dust. Its already in a horrible spot and with Sage taking the limelight, its going to be in a worst position if no major changes or rework happens to Sch.

[Absurdity]

I'll admit I've not read the entire thread (I only read the OP), so this might've been brought up buuuut...

WoW has 6 different healers. If they can manage 6, SE should be able to manage 4. If they can't, there's some huge issues there.

XIV hasn't even managed to make it's current 3 healers feel unique.
Granted WoW's encounter design simply allows for more creative healer design than XIV's does, but it's still not a very good track record.

[Lyth]

...

It would be nice to see more parties which don't feel obliged to bring a SCH. If only for a bit of variety after 8 years.

[Liam_Harper]

So, in that sense, the balance is not so bad.

Perhaps. But it's still only "balanced" by the fact that there's one ridiculously good healer and the 2 others are roughly equal so both can fit in the second place slot. It's not balanced by the 3 classes being equally capable. I don't really see that as well designed balance, more an artificial balance helped by the small number of healers. With 4 healers and 2 split specializations that doesn't work as well. Let's say one pure healer is OP. That automatically pushes the other pure healer out of the slot.

I'll admit WHM is fascinating though. Despite everything it remains the most popular healer by far at all levels of gameplay. It's currently the worst choice in this Savage tier and the forums love to hate how it works and constantly request it to get raid buffs, debuffs, utility and complexity. But I feel there's something in its popularity, that many people do like the idea of straightforward effective gameplay without micromanaging clunky pets or juggling card rng. Probably best they build on that and make the gameplay smoother and flow better rather than rework it, more weave, a bit more engagement on dps, similar mobility to BLM and it'd be great. Similar with SCH, they could look at what made it popular in StB, putting fairy actions onto the oGCD was big mistake really.

Right now, SCH is actually straight up better. WHM is just popular and the gap isn't too big. Since the buffs last patch, it pulled ahead slightly on rdps and it compliments and brings out the best in AST by allowing it run the superior Diurnal even at endgame, where WHM will tend to lean heavily on AST in order to perform well.

[Risvertasashi]

Perhaps. But it's still only "balanced" by the fact that there's one ridiculously good healer and the 2 others are roughly equal so both can fit in the second place slot. It's not balanced by the 3 classes being equally capable. I don't really see that as well designed balance, more an artificial balance helped by the small number of healers. With 4 healers and 2 split specializations that doesn't work as well. Let's say one pure healer is OP. That automatically pushes the other pure healer out of the slot.

So just to be clear, I don't think it's ideal, I don't think it's great. But if all healers can be played and accepted, then... well that's a lot better than that we've gotten in the past.

I'll admit WHM is fascinating though. Despite everything it remains the most popular healer by far at all levels of gameplay. It's currently the worst choice in this Savage tier and the forums love to hate how it works and constantly request it to get raid buffs, debuffs, utility and complexity. But I feel there's something in its popularity, that many people do like the idea of straightforward effective gameplay without micromanaging clunky pets or juggling card rng. Probably best they build on that and make the gameplay smoother and flow better rather than rework it, more weave, a bit more engagement on dps, similar mobility to BLM and it'd be great. Similar with SCH, they could look at what made it popular in StB, putting fairy actions onto the oGCD was big mistake really.

Right now, SCH is actually straight up better. WHM is just popular and the gap isn't too big. Since the buffs last patch, it pulled ahead slightly on rdps and it compliments and brings out the best in AST by allowing it run the superior Diurnal even at endgame, where WHM will tend to lean heavily on AST in order to perform well.

And this is probably why WHM is always doomed to be the least powerful healer, at least outside of shining for maybe a patch or two.

It stays the most popular unless the other healers are buffed to an extreme point of forcing players' hands - see previous expansions. At least ShB hasn't reached that point. A small improvement in SE's balancing, but there nontheless.

As for WHM's popularity, it's no great mystery. As you say, it's straightforward. It's also very iconic - in more way than one. First in that it's a classic final fantasy job, of course. But even when a potential player doesn't know anything about that, WHM is very iconic as a healer in general.

Then you have to consider what draws a person to play a healer over the other roles. There's a lot of fantasies that are simply better served by red or even blue. If someone's willing to break from the mainstream to go heal, there's a pretty high chance they're envisioning themselves doing the things that White Mage's class fantasy promises more than the others. (Promises, but doesn't necessarily deliver on).

[ItMe]

I'll admit WHM is fascinating though. Despite everything it remains the most popular healer by far at all levels of gameplay. It's currently the worst choice in this Savage tier and the forums love to hate how it works and constantly request it to get raid buffs, debuffs, utility and complexity. But I feel there's something in its popularity, that many people do like the idea of straightforward effective gameplay without micromanaging clunky pets or juggling card rng.

Perhaps it's also because having a low APM also helps healers with all the different things they have to juggle
-what they're doing
-monitor how their party is
-manage how their party is
-stay on top of what the boss is doing and respond to mechanics
-be able to stay enough ahead of it all that one can still improvise when things inevitably go wrong somewhere in the party.
-etc.

At least, that's what I like about it.