Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

[Lyth]

It doesn't matter to me how you define AST's gameplay aesthetic. The introduction of damage up card buffs back in 2015 was quite possibly the single worst decision that they've made for healing as a role. It's artificial 'utility', and it overshadows everything else you could offer as an alternative. As long as that is a part of your job, it's going to dominate your identity as a white mage with cards. Er, yes, I will use my mastery of the space-time continuum to... make your damage up buff last longer. That's not at all worthy of being called "time magic".

If you want a more nuanced support identity, then you need to make a clean break with the damage up buffs and start exploring other types of utility effects. I mean, this is what I would be asking if I was on WHM. AST gets to 'support' its team through damage buffs. WHM should get its own style of utility buffs. Let them give out Lucio-style movement speed boosts to melee dps to let them squeeze in extra GCDs before repositioning. Let them setup a Symmetra styled Warp Pad to let your ranged/casters jump between two points on the arena. Positional advantages translate into dps advantages in the hands of a good player. They're support effects, but it's not simple at all to evaluate their value. And that's the same type of design space that time magic has historically occupied in FF's history.

If you want it, you need to commit to it. Otherwise, let another support job do it the justice it deserves.

[ASkellington]

If you want it, you need to commit to it. Otherwise, let another support job do it the justice it deserves.

We do want it. The fact of the matter is the dev team does not.

[GrimGale]

Spell speed/Skill speed buffs were removed from both SCH and AST.

Is the only reason they potentially misalign rotations?

[Grimoire-M]

Spell speed/Skill speed buffs were removed from both SCH and AST.

Is the only reason they potentially misalign rotations?

Yes, but it was reduced to just another bump on the gear calculation if you wanted to actually use it. Spear before it was changed to critical strike chance was the only AST buff that was demonstrably bad for your rotation regardless of your role. Either you fished for it for half the fight and slapped it on one of the cooldown-heavy DPS repeatedly or you didn’t bother. Balance and Arrow were both strictly better given equal levels of attention and didn’t break rotations. Hell as a singular card Bole was better as a DPS tool.

[Raikai]

It doesn't matter to me how you define AST's gameplay aesthetic. The introduction of damage up card buffs back in 2015 was quite possibly the single worst decision that they've made for healing as a role. It's artificial 'utility', and it overshadows everything else you could offer as an alternative. As long as that is a part of your job, it's going to dominate your identity as a white mage with cards. Er, yes, I will use my mastery of the space-time continuum to... make your damage up buff last longer. That's not at all worthy of being called "time magic".

If you want a more nuanced support identity, then you need to make a clean break with the damage up buffs and start exploring other types of utility effects. I mean, this is what I would be asking if I was on WHM. AST gets to 'support' its team through damage buffs. WHM should get its own style of utility buffs. Let them give out Lucio-style movement speed boosts to melee dps to let them squeeze in extra GCDs before repositioning. Let them setup a Symmetra styled Warp Pad to let your ranged/casters jump between two points on the arena. Positional advantages translate into dps advantages in the hands of a good player. They're support effects, but it's not simple at all to evaluate their value. And that's the same type of design space that time magic has historically occupied in FF's history.

If you want it, you need to commit to it. Otherwise, let another support job do it the justice it deserves.

I agree with this... I think it's actually a problem that healers can offer specific +dmg utility, because it would be always used in favor of defensives, especially right now, where healers rarely run out of MP and overhealing is abundant.

There are tons of other utitities that can be explored instead of simply buffing damage. Like you said, a boost to movement speed might save someone's behind in a tight situation.

Magic defense, physical defense, movement speed, spell or skillspeed, MP regen, Reflect back part of damage taken... I'd even put cool utilities not yet seen, like faster recovery from the debuff you get after a rez.

[Grimoire-M]

I agree with this... I think it's actually a problem that healers can offer specific +dmg utility, because it would be always used in favor of defensives, especially right now, where healers rarely run out of MP and overhealing is abundant.

There are tons of other utitities that can be explored instead of simply buffing damage. Like you said, a boost to movement speed might save someone's behind in a tight situation.

Magic defense, physical defense, movement speed, spell or skillspeed, MP regen, Reflect back part of damage taken... I'd even put cool utilities not yet seen, like faster recovery from the debuff you get after a rez.

To me the problem is Draw and Play itself. You're never going to use Utility cards if you're only guaranteed a finite amount of cards per fight and you have to pick between them and DPS cards. The DPS cards will always win that race if they're tuned to even be acceptable. The way around this, to my way of thinking, is to make draws happen automatically when you use certain actions such as (but not limited to) Play, and split Play into DPS and non-DPS versions that do not share cooldowns. Because Draws happen automatically AST loses a lot of tension, so I'd propose shifting their focus to hand manipulation, in a manner that reflects what they used to be able to do in Stormblood, but with more slots to store cards and ideally less party member selection. That way you can take advantage of their utility without losing DPS potential. The downside to this is you explicitly can't have an action like Undraw to fix mistakes, and therefore have to have at least one action that acts as a safety valve against bad RNG. A slightly tweaked version of Minor Arcana where instead of another 50/50 RNG choice it instead always gave you nukes from Utility cards and heals from DPS cards would have solved this dilemma.

[ksuyen]

Oh I have no doubt they will be balance, after all after playing 3 healers for years they all are capable doing their jobs in any situations. The problem is often lay on the player: which playstyle do you like most, which you feel more comfortable with, which you find most cumbersome. Again, these are all subjective. Player X might find WHM easiest while player Y might find WHM is annoying and prefer SCH. In fact they all are fine. Just play whichever healer you like to play most, as Risvertasashi said, there has never been a problem with healers. It's always you: the players.

[AC9Breaker]

Yeah, it can survive another healer.

[GrimGale]

I am hoping the addition of Sage and the further distinction between shield/hots, makes devs implement a distinction between PersonalDPS/Selfish and RaidDPS/Support within healers.

Seems Sage will be joining WHM in the Personal Dps category, so I am hoping SCH's support skills (Chain Stratagem, debuff management and such) get expanded upon.

[Deceptus]

I am hoping the addition of Sage and the further distinction between shield/hots, makes devs implement a distinction between PersonalDPS/Selfish and RaidDPS/Support within healers.

Seems Sage will be joining WHM in the Personal Dps category, so I am hoping SCH's support skills (Chain Stratagem, debuff management and such) get expanded upon.

Agreed. I really hope they allow more support for the shield based healers. Buff / Debuffs are sorely needed on healers in general and shouldn't be on the DPS. They rarely ever use them.