Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

[Semirhage]

As AST is apparently about to become one of two regen(pure) healers with the loss of nocturnal/shield healing and the introduction of a second shield heal job, my only hope is that Squeenix does something -- anything -- to revamp the card system (i.e. make it more interesting and/or restore versatility as it was pre-5.0), or add something new to explain the job's lore. Because right now it doesn't align with the job's storyline quests and one of its strengths is its ability to pair with either a shield or regen healer.

Makes me wonder if/how they're going to change the AST job quests. Calling the cards different as of 5.0 already doesn't make sense. Stormblood job quests have you shielding stuff, and make heavy reference to your ability to make/strengthen barriers. Soooooooo...are they going to change that? Or just make the quest line mechanically possible while not touching any of the dialogue and leave the entire job lore a confused mess? Stay tuned to find out!

[Kazukiyashuo]

I've been wondering this for a while since it has been a topic raised by some of my friend circles in-game and in Discord. Can Healers survive a fourth healer coming into the game next expansion?

Because honestly, let's be real - they've butchered healers to nothing except oGCD Heals and 1 Attack and 1 DoT. I don't know how they'll be able to shoehorn in a 4th Healer given how the dichotomy works either; unless they do something about shielding and fix SCH's issues. It's really tough to even balance healers right now as is.

No they cant balance it. Time to quit healing or pick other game

[Roeshel]

AST is entirely the problem with balance since they've been implemented.

Either they are a jack of all trades and a master of none who aren't as strong as SCH/WHM but their cards were supposed to be their utility

or

They're as strong as WHM/SCH and their cards still bring utility and either WHM or SCH are redundant at that point.

Hell, there was a time Noct Sect shields were stronger than a SCH's, used less MP, and were instant (still are instant). They were literally better at shielding than the job dedicated to shielding and they also brought card buffs.

Point is, AST's dual nature has made them virtually impossible to balance.

I don't know why sch is thought to be the healer that focuses on shields. To me shields seem like an afterthought to the SCH job. They have only two shields on global cooldown which are nothing amazing and none of them are instant. Their long fairy regen in most cases makes the use of gcd shield completely useless.

At the end of the day, shields are weak in this game. Their only plus is that they can negate mechanics, I recently noticed that vulnerability stacks are not applied if the shield does not break but that's it. There is only one skill in this game that is potent enough to make that happen - a crit aldo which is going to apply the catalyze buff. If the scholars had the means to apply a catalyze barrier party wide and more often then shields would have been more useful and I would have understood why SCH is the shield focused healer.

[IceBlueNinja]

I don't know why sch is thought to be the healer that focuses on shields. To me shields seem like an afterthought to the SCH job. They have only two shields on global cooldown which are nothing amazing and none of them are instant. Their long fairy regen in most cases makes the use of gcd shield completely useless.

At the end of the day, shields are weak in this game. Their only plus is that they can negate mechanics, I recently noticed that vulnerability stacks are not applied if the shield does not break but that's it. There is only one skill in this game that is potent enough to make that happen - a crit aldo which is going to apply the catalyze buff. If the scholars had the means to apply a catalyze barrier party wide and more often then shields would have been more useful and I would have understood why SCH is the shield focused healer.

aspected helios noct+ celestial oppo can do this for the entire party in regards to the vurn example, it also can stop knock backs too in some cases in a few instances or even other debuffs. Eden leviathan I pop one on myself (noct aspected benefic) for a 18k barrier and by taking 0 damage on it the part with the rising tide your suppose to stand close to , to get push in the middle before levi smashes the sides of the battle field, I took no push back impact for it thus keeping up dpsing time, it can be sure casted too but people usually still seem to run to the tide still. Edges to shield is while not really needed even with the current heavy content, if am doing solo things i have alot more time to dsp down something like a, A rank hunt may even have the ability to still be surviving with 5+ vurn stack(if I am learning something new munching on vurns) vs if am doing regens and I got that 5+ stack its a most likely 1 hit death for not having a bubble on. Bubbles to me are useful in situation where your trying to learn new things but once you do understand said mechs then it really is not necessary though. Yes I know not EVERY mech even with a the biggest of bubble gonna save ya from a 99999999 damage set mech XD.

Tbh the honest truth is why I feel regen/shields are no better than the other is honestly maybe am too use to haste+regen combo in traditional ffs, but regens to me do not tick fast enough heal up injured people unless its some of those fights where the boss is doing some extra animated thing that delays then thus making the regen then heal up on time before next mech unleashed, You can pop di aspect helio/medic 2 but still may be doing medica 1 or helios 2 cause more up coming damage is immediately gonna happen like shiva with her absolute zero spam near death. Regen=reactive/shield=proactive where I fall mostly on preparing for bad stuff vs treating it after happening.

[Absurdity]

There is only one skill in this game that is potent enough to make that happen - a crit aldo which is going to apply the catalyze buff. If the scholars had the means to apply a catalyze barrier party wide

Well, that's exactly what the old Deployment Tactics did but having to spend potentially several GCDs to fish for a crit adlo was apparently too overpowered.

[Roeshel]

aspected helios noct+ celestial oppo can do this for the entire party in regards to the vurn example .

I don't know about that. Most shields would get pierced by dodgeable AoE and only those apply vulnerability stacks. Aspected helios noct + celestial opposition = 250 + 250 = 500 shield potency. I ran a Mt. Gulg with sch and the tank was new so I kept aldo+catalyze (which has roughly 1100 shield potency) on him during Feather Marionette. This way he wouldn't get too many stacks. That shield was barely enough to mitigate the aoe damage once so I had to apply it twice and it was on a tank player who has higher defences. Aside from the single targeted crit aldo, shields, in general, are not strong enough to be constantly used to prevent vulnerability stacks which should be the whole point of shielding - prevention. It is nice that preventing knockback still works because of the low damage.

SCH as a healer who focuses on shielding has more ways to instantly heal party members than to shield them from damage. This is why I don't think we have real shield healers in this game.

[Truen]

I mean, did balance survive 3 healers? Because from my seat it looks like they gave up and just homogenized the crap out of the 3 healing jobs we had and created dumbed-down, less interesting versions of what we had with 4.0 and prior patches. So, no I don't have alot of hope for 6.0 What's next? For all we know they'll give fairies, cards, and lilies to everyone.

But when it comes to creating interesting, different feeling jobs with more than a single dps nuke--I think people are going to be very disappointment.

[Grimoire-M]

I don't know why sch is thought to be the healer that focuses on shields. To me shields seem like an afterthought to the SCH job. They have only two shields on global cooldown which are nothing amazing and none of them are instant. Their long fairy regen in most cases makes the use of gcd shield completely useless.

Back in ARR before we had Indomitability, Scholar had to rely on their shields to get through harder content. Eos and Selene, while ridiculous, were balanced around the fact they could only handle limited amounts of sustained damage, forcing scholars to use Adlo and Succor to mitigate burst damage. They actually had a significant weakness in not having a perfect answer to AoE and non-tank burst healing (Lustrate was %HP based and healed way more on tanks as a result). White Mage had much better raw healing tools and some extremely mana efficient regens but couldn’t mitigate (Stoneskin had the same problems as Lustrate) or sustain their MP very well. Healers under this binary were balanced around eachother’s weaknesses. Heavenward threw a giant wrench known as AST into that, and Scholar got overtuned to make things ‘fit’ regardless of your party composition, which is ultimately what made AST broken. AST was playing catch-up against a monster of free healing and WHM had every bit of its original kit stripped down to accommodate the nonsense these two couldn’t bring, which felt mind boggling given how undertuned it was.

Scholar was broken for a long time, but it’s original identity as the shield/mitigation/pet healer is still there. Indom just makes it super easy to play if ya mess up. It’s why I’m fine with nerfing it’s throughout in particular but want Adlo/Succor to be made into full shields to get ahead of the HP creep brought on from the accessory changes.

[ty_taurus]

Back in ARR before we had Indomitability, Scholar had to rely on their shields to get through harder content. Eos and Selene, while ridiculous, were balanced around the fact they could only handle limited amounts of sustained damage, forcing scholars to use Adlo and Succor to mitigate burst damage. They actually had a significant weakness in not having a perfect answer to AoE and non-tank burst healing (Lustrate was %HP based and healed way more on tanks as a result). White Mage had much better raw healing tools and some extremely mana efficient regens but couldn’t mitigate (Stoneskin had the same problems as Lustrate) or sustain their MP very well. Healers under this binary were balanced around eachother’s weaknesses. Heavenward threw a giant wrench known as AST into that, and Scholar got overtuned to make things ‘fit’ regardless of your party composition, which is ultimately what made AST broken. AST was playing catch-up against a monster of free healing and WHM had every bit of its original kit stripped down to accommodate the nonsense these two couldn’t bring, which felt mind boggling given how undertuned it was.

Scholar was broken for a long time, but it’s original identity as the shield/mitigation/pet healer is still there. Indom just makes it super easy to play if ya mess up. It’s why I’m fine with nerfing it’s throughout in particular but want Adlo/Succor to be made into full shields to get ahead of the HP creep brought on from the accessory changes.

I feel like having a defined weakness is something that makes each job feel more unique, and while I doubt we'll go back to that, I do think it could really help with reinstating job identity. Regarding Indom, I do think it's ability to completely eliminate the weakness SCH had in ARR was the beginning of the issue, but I also feel that there's room for it to exist in a more balanced way. Using Indom should have some kind of trade off for something that is generally more valuable (i.e. damage). Perhaps if using Indom meant you couldn't use some other form of DPS that you otherwise need to hit those big numbers could actually be a step forward for SCH.

The idea is that Indom becomes a safety net for casual players who feel overwhelmed by damage, but more optimally won't be used as often in an attempt to max DPS output. That would keep the job having a low skill floor while also allowing for a higher skill ceiling. It's only one piece of the puzzle of course, but it's certainly a starting point.

[Semirhage]

I feel like having a defined weakness is something that makes each job feel more unique, and while I doubt we'll go back to that, I do think it could really help with reinstating job identity. Regarding Indom, I do think it's ability to completely eliminate the weakness SCH had in ARR was the beginning of the issue, but I also feel that there's room for it to exist in a more balanced way. Using Indom should have some kind of trade off for something that is generally more valuable (i.e. damage). Perhaps if using Indom meant you couldn't use some other form of DPS that you otherwise need to hit those big numbers could actually be a step forward for SCH.

The idea is that Indom becomes a safety net for casual players who feel overwhelmed by damage, but more optimally won't be used as often in an attempt to max DPS output. That would keep the job having a low skill floor while also allowing for a higher skill ceiling. It's only one piece of the puzzle of course, but it's certainly a starting point.

While redefining strengths and weaknesses is a great start, there's a looming elephant in the room...what's WHM's strength? What's its weakness? Those questions and their horrible answers have orbited the heart of why healer balance has been as awkward as it has for years.