How could you do this to AST?

[Recon1o6]

totally agreed pete, i feel it for the bards, we ast and sch got hit bad but bard got brutalized. Respects to the bards who still plays it and hope yall get some love back I mean it.

I would actually say that dark knight got brutalised the most. They got turned into discount warrior and just like us healers, they haven't been listened to either

Then ast/sch/bard got beaten down into the dirt

[MintnHoney]

I would actually say that dark knight got brutalised the most. They got turned into discount warrior and just like us healers, they haven't been listened to either

Then ast/sch/bard got beaten down into the dirt

I guess this is similar to what it would feel like if canned sardines maintained their awareness.
I wonder what the marinade in the can that is this next expansion's gonna be..?

[Mesarthim]

I would actually say that dark knight got brutalised the most. They got turned into discount warrior and just like us healers, they haven't been listened to either

Then ast/sch/bard got beaten down into the dirt

Which is why I took like 8-9 months off of the game (would've been more but, house is hostage once more). I played AST/some SCH in Stb, and DRK. The expansion was almost ruined for me if not for Viera (even though I swapped off due to no new hairs etc) and the story being good.

The job changes was the biggest gut punch to my enjoyment of the expansion. I'm not even healing right now anymore unless I absolutely have to (which I've gone weeks without). Sad since I used to be a healer main.

I'd also like to point out that every Heavensward job has been reworked at some point, be it good or bad. Just something I've noticed.

[Recon1o6]

Which is why I took like 8-9 months off of the game (would've been more but, house is hostage once more). I played AST/some SCH in Stb, and DRK. The expansion was almost ruined for me if not for Viera (even though I swapped off due to no new hairs etc) and the story being good.

The job changes was the biggest gut punch to my enjoyment of the expansion. I'm not even healing right now anymore unless I absolutely have to (which I've gone weeks without). Sad since I used to be a healer main.

I'd also like to point out that every Heavensward job has been reworked at some point, be it good or bad. Just something I've noticed.

Same, this expansion's job changes basically made it so the only reason I logged in was my house and the story, and once I was done with the story in 5.1, I've been putting the game down until it came to 5.4 and I been slowly levelling monk again since it has turned into 2.0 monk.

I stopped healing barely a couple of weeks after 5.1- whm was interesting for a little bit then I got bored of it and thus stopped healing. I didn't even switch to astro until I needed a dress for an eternal bonding.


Its easier to find a job that has been reworked from its old and usually preferred gameplay style than one that hasnt. There's pretty much only blm and samurai left that haven't undergone an overhaul and its certainly doubtful the former ever will being yoshida's pet.

Oh and yoshida is also the reason we dont have damage types visible without 3rd party tools.

[Equitable_Remedy]

Its easier to find a job that has been reworked from its old and usually preferred gameplay style than one that hasnt.

I know that this is going to be an unpopular opinion around here, but classes are generally changed in response to feedback—in almost all cases, reverting them would just recreate the problems that changes were implemented to address.

I'm not saying that you or anyone on this forum wouldn't prefer some previous version of whatever class, but recognize that forum/Reddit opinions do not in any way reflect the majority of players. Similarly, class changes are often in response to much broader feedback and/or observation of game data.

"Things were better back in the day" is a very common refrain on MMO forums (look at WoW), but then you look at posts/surveys from back in the day, and you start to remember that things really weren't better.

[Semirhage]

"Things were better back in the day" is a very common refrain on MMO forums (look at WoW), but then you look at posts/surveys from back in the day, and you start to remember that things really weren't better.

I'm willing to be that several previous versions of the healer jobs were better designed than 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

[ItMe]

I'm willing to be that several previous versions of the healer jobs were better designed than 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Better in some ways, worse in others.
They seem to have largely traded one set of flaws for another.

[Saefinn]

I know that this is going to be an unpopular opinion around here, but classes are generally changed in response to feedback—in almost all cases, reverting them would just recreate the problems that changes were implemented to address.

I'm not saying that you or anyone on this forum wouldn't prefer some previous version of whatever class, but recognize that forum/Reddit opinions do not in any way reflect the majority of players. Similarly, class changes are often in response to much broader feedback and/or observation of game data.

"Things were better back in the day" is a very common refrain on MMO forums (look at WoW), but then you look at posts/surveys from back in the day, and you start to remember that things really weren't better.

Feedback is often from people who're not happy, people who were happy with how things were don't tend to make forum posts about it. Case in point, I've not been active on the healer forums until the healer issues got to a point where I felt the need to complain about them as there were no signs of improvement and instead a sharp turn in things getting worse. So prior to this I've given no feedback on healing what-so-ever and I never expected it to be changed for the worst.

Whilst I get "rose tinted glasses" can be a thing. What I do know is:
- I used to enjoy healing but I don't anymore except in niche cases
- I know what I enjoy about healing in this game
- I know what has changed about healing design that makes me no longer enjoy it
- I know what we used to have that made me enjoy healing more.
- I know that I didn't used to have 70% healing downtime and 1 or 2 buttons to spam for DPS, which let's face it, is dull.
- I know what I praised about my original healing job, SCH, and I know much of what I've praised is either gone or made redundant


I feel like the people who weren't happy before these changes could have been accommodated in a 4th healer job instead of making people who were already happy unhappy by screwing with existing ones.

There were flaws, especially in terms of balance. WHM was left in the dirt, SCH was OP. In ARR it wasn't the case, but in HW it was.

Balance is better, but it feels like a lot was sacrificed to achieve it. But my main feedback now, with SE emphasising the difference between "pure" and "shield" healers harder for 6.0, is it's something that really only worked in 2.0 I feel we need to look at what about it worked in 2.0 and how can that be adapted.



Balance I feel was mainly thrown out of whack by two things: SCH being made OP and the introduction of AST. And they designed AST to try and fit both niches because they couldn't create a third niche. Balance in 2.0 was good because it had only 2 healers that complemented each other and did so because of this pure/shield healer distinction. If they achieve that, I don't think it's so bad AST loses Noct Sect because I can see it as an opportunity for them to develop AST into its own unique space instead of trying to fill another's place...at the same time, my fear is that it turns into WHM with cards, which isn't worth the trade off.

I think SCH was made OP because of this myth that 2.0 SCH was weak, it felt and looked weak, but when played well it wasn't, this is because of the shield healing concept. They patched up its perceived weakness and suddenly playing it well meant SCH was too good. Speaking as somebody who used SCH to raid back in ARR.

So them taking this step in 6.0 feels logical when you look at it like that. If done well it means they only need to balance AST against WHM and SGE against SCH. If not well done, it means bigger problems.

[Irenia]

Better in some ways, worse in others.
They seem to have largely traded one set of flaws for another.

What is a flaw to one person or demographic can be a boon to another. In the end, the dev team wants to make the game as a whole enjoyable to the most amount of people possible. It's how they get subs.

Unlike, say, Bard, where the design seems to be a conceptual mistake on the design, the healers' changes seem mostly deliberate. For example, they simplified dps across the board and even removed energy drain... which was shortly walked back due to bad design. But then, it was recently nerfed. It really feels like whatever their goal is requires energy drain to be gone, but just removing it breaks other things. They said that this was a springboard for 6.0... so what does ED have to do with 6.0?

Honestly, I think all I really can do is continually remind them that enfranchised healers exist. We want to have fun whether in the ultimate encounter or doing the 1st expansion trial the 30th time. Unfortunately, I also feel like this game is becoming more and more a DPS game... in all sense of the word.

[ForteNightshade]

I know that this is going to be an unpopular opinion around here, but classes are generally changed in response to feedback—in almost all cases, reverting them would just recreate the problems that changes were implemented to address.

This is not necessarily the case. Often times the devs seem to overreact or remain incredibly stubborn. Bard and Monk are two shining examples of this, with the former having been unanimously the most popular DPS throughout Stormblood while the latter was heavily criticised. What happened? They completely gutted all nuance from Bard, making it a Ranger with songs. Meanwhile, they praised their apparent rework of Monk... except it literally kept every single aspect people's feedback said they hated. As of 5.4, Bard is among the least played DPS now and Monk went through a panic buff and a full tear down recently.

Dark Knight is another job people have routinely criticised, particularly Living Dead. Before it was Dark Arts spam, which resulted in them just deleting Dark Arts entirely and turning it into a uninspired Warrior clone while LD still remains the bane of tank invulns.