Macrocosmos completely invalidating the P3S heal check is stupid

[Risvertasashi]

I actually disagree on this one, because as ridiculously good as Macrocosmos is, it is a 90 capstone ability and at least one healer is getting some nice toys. I don't think asking the devs to take away toys from other healers is a good way to get attention for fixing WHM. It's sort of like when some people here became fixated on nerfing tank heals, despite the fact it'd solve none of our own issues or the fact bosses hit like wet noodles.

That sign that it's too strong is not when people don't want to take the healer in a really crappy place, that is white mage. It's when they want an AST no matter what, and won't take other high-performing healer combos.

A healer being considered mandatory (even if it's not technically mandatory - but that's always how these things go; it's what the community decides) is not good balance no matter what.

It is a bit like tanks - pretending that the only problem is outgoing damage when, in reality, that's just a part of the bigger picture, and a job (or jobs, in the case of tanks) being overpowered is very much an issue that must be addressed lest you settle for a bandaid on a bullet hole.

[Urielparadox]

People lock out sages because the vast majority of sages are just bad and never use their kit properly. How man sages have I had that end a savage fight with 0 uses of their non addersgall heals, and no zoes or the other one is terrifying. I havent had any healers struggle with death toll in p3s unless people don't group stand where they are supposed to in meelee range, no matter the job. lilly bell makes FoF trivial, its just a different skill check so to argue against death toll because macros, but ignore FoF heal check because bell is willful ignorance, rdm, mnk, rpr, dnc, all have powerful group cure aids, not to mention mitigation from feint and addle, that can be used during this time. Even without dps help it does not take healer using its entire kit. Considering what the next mechanic is sage can physics II then holos, and then the addersgall aoe and heal the whole party up by themselves. That's 1 healer, using 3 buttons instead of 2 covering the whole mech solo, with ogcds. While still having addersgal and holos back before they are needed Again. Whm can set asylum while the birds are firing, then use, temperance and medica 2, as the 3-4 bird are firing, PI Cure 3, and if needed cure 3 Again boom done. Considering it just used bell to deal with FoF. And ast have to use most of their kit. That's a pretty fair trade off. Yes whm needs work but the over exaggeration being about how ast can handle this 1 mechanic with ease and ignore the rest of the other mechanics where other healers handle with ease. While the overall mechanic for just 1 healer to handle by themselves is easy enough ignoring synergy from your co healer, from your party, from your tanks. Balance isn't about how you do in a vacuum balance is about how everything synergies

[elioaiko]

And then what? The Devs continue to ignore WHM and the Sylphies go "hey, WHM is ok in p3s now!" and it continues being the most popular class on all fights, solidifying its position as being "fine".

Exactly, nerfing Macro will only prove that some people don't care about healer balance but to want everything else to be on WHM's level when that level is rock bottom and barebones.

It being popular is so sad be a use it's what the devs use to see if it's in trouble. ShB 5.0 AST had an abysmal play rate because of how badly they balanced AST's kit. And then the devs buffed AST.

I'm not saying for everyone to stop playing WHM so they'll see but know that unless people actually complain hard enough. Other than that, the whole "WHM is fine, AST is just OP" is rather tone deaf because nerfing AST only causes it to have an even lower playrate along with a weaker healing kit than WHM.

Let's remember that 5.0 people actively locked out AST because it's healing didn't justify the cards.

[Cheremia]

People saying its only good for when it does like, 99999 damage to heal you full are basically wrong too.

It invalidates every single mechanic its used on.
I Invalidated basically every single AoE in Pande today because i wanted to do so, since i'm sad with whm.

It DOES have an extra 200 potency heal attached to it anyways, it basically heals a little less than hp lost from a SINGLE aoe.

So its not like it only invalidates a Savage mechanic. The fact that it does, and will continue to do so, is just the icing on the cake.
Every single thing its used for will be invalidated.

Lol

[Rika007]

I'm not saying for everyone to stop playing WHM so they'll see but know that unless people actually complain hard enough.

Nah you right though. Look over at the DPS side of things. Unless your job is named Summoner, every major rework has been preceded by people just outright abandoning a job. (In the case of SMN though it was 8 non stop years of complaining that finally brought about it's rework). Those buffs AST got in 5.0? Cause no one was playing it.

WHM will never get the attention it needs as long as players keep playing the job. Which may mean this argument is lost from the start. But saying to nerf AST's awesome ability is not the way to go.

[Semirhage]

Exactly, nerfing Macro will only prove that some people don't care about healer balance but to want everything else to be on WHM's level when that level is rock bottom and barebones.

It being popular is so sad be a use it's what the devs use to see if it's in trouble. ShB 5.0 AST had an abysmal play rate because of how badly they balanced AST's kit. And then the devs buffed AST.

I'm not saying for everyone to stop playing WHM so they'll see but know that unless people actually complain hard enough. Other than that, the whole "WHM is fine, AST is just OP" is rather tone deaf because nerfing AST only causes it to have an even lower playrate along with a weaker healing kit than WHM.

Let's remember that 5.0 people actively locked out AST because it's healing didn't justify the cards.

It's possible to believe that WHM is not fine and AST having an AOE Benediction that also deals damage is overpowered at the same time.

I'm hearing nothing that I haven't heard before in expansions past from AST and SCH mains alike. "What!? My class isn't overpowered! It's *merely* really good at everything, has a ton of zero-cost instant healing, a bunch of buffs, and can do several things your class can't. I'm sure you could be brought up with a few tweaks here and there."

What weaknesses does AST have? No really? Infinite MP, scaling raid DPS contribution that's only going to get higher as the expansion continues, a huge buffet of free oGCD heals with short cooldowns, great mobility, the utter BS that is Neutral Sect AOE shielding if the occasion calls for it after Square claims they made it a "non-shield" healer, and now a 3 minute cooldown that just dumps all over the power level of other 3 minute cooldowns.

WHM is a crap healer that needs an overhaul to drag its terminally stuck in ARR carcass upward (it'll never happen, but it needs to), but part of an overhaul that leads to fun, interesting healer balance is introducing some actual weaknesses into the healers that presently have zero downsides. And no, "having tons of buttons to press" isn't a weakness.

As Risvertasashi said earlier, this isn't even just about WHM sucking. AST is the only healer that can cheese the hell out of this mechanic. People are locking slots to AST because Death's Toll's mechanic heavily caters toward Macrocosmos' strengths, while none of the other healers have an answer to it. Is it *really* the case that one of the healers with zero weaknesses isn't a teeeeeensy bit OP?

[Rika007]

It's possible to believe that WHM is not fine and AST having an AOE Benediction that also deals damage is overpowered at the same time.

I'm hearing nothing that I haven't heard before in expansions past from AST and SCH mains alike. "What!? My class isn't overpowered! It's *merely* really good at everything, has a ton of zero-cost instant healing, a bunch of buffs, and can do several things your class can't. I'm sure you could be brought up with a few tweaks here and there."

What weaknesses does AST have? No really? Infinite MP, scaling raid DPS contribution that's only going to get higher as the expansion continues, a huge buffet of free oGCD heals with short cooldowns, great mobility, the utter BS that is Neutral Sect AOE shielding if the occasion calls for it after Square claims they made it a "non-shield" healer, and now a 3 minute cooldown that just dumps all over the power level of other 3 minute cooldowns.

WHM is a crap healer that needs an overhaul to drag its terminally stuck in ARR carcass upward (it'll never happen, but it needs to), but part of an overhaul that leads to fun, interesting healer balance is introducing some actual weaknesses into the healers that have zero downsides. And no, "having tons of buttons to press" isn't a weakness.

I'm sorry but let's look at this from a wide perspective... Why the heck should a job have a 'weakness'. In games like this weakness just is another way to take away player agency and place it in the hands of others. Which is why they have done things like remove refresh from the ranged DPS, give tanks better self healing (if your name isn't dark knight anyway) removed things like the piercing debuff, tp requirements on physical attacks, etc etc.

Players don't want to feel weak. The weakness is no matter how powerful your class is you're not doing any on content savage or ultimate stuff as a one man or woman party. AST actually feels amazing, and a lot of that has to do with Macrocosmos being a very powerful and fun ability to use. And it SHOULD be VERY powerful. It's an ability you get to use at most maybe 3-4 times a fight. We should be looking at why do Benediction, LillyBell and Dissipation NOT feel like superpowered abilities, not trying to strip Macro down. Especially when we talk about how boring healing as a role has gotten.

As Risvertasashi said earlier, this isn't even just about WHM sucking. AST is the only healer that can cheese the hell out of this mechanic. People are locking slots to AST because Death's Toll's mechanic heavily caters toward Macrocosmos' strengths, while none of the other healers have an answer to it. Is it *really* the case that one of the healers with zero weaknesses isn't a teeeeeensy bit OP?

This argument would hold a lot more weight if players in general viewed healing in a positive light. But they don't Scholar players haven't been happy for a long time and the luster is already coming off Sage. Heck AST players still have issues too. So yes, AST isn't OP. The other healers lack the ability to take agency into their own hands as well is far more of an issue that should be addressed.

[Semirhage]

We're gonna have to agree to disagree on that one. I think a job being really good at everything is a huge red flag. That's textbook overpowered.

[Rika007]

We're gonna have to agree to disagree on that one. I think a job being really good at everything is a huge red flag. That's textbook overpowered.

Trust me, I fully understand your view point, I just do disagree with it. My grounds is that AST only feels OP because they are the only healer in the game that has any semblance of a well built kit (this isn't to denigrate the issues it has with its card kit many AST players have, or some of its superfluous abilities). The rest of the healers are just missing something or poorly built in general, be it Sage missing recovery buttons or rDPS support, SCH's aetherflow kit being at war with itself at high level play, or White Mage's... everything.

To put a real life spin on it, when you have only one worker who is prepared enough to properly do a job on a whole team, that worker will look far better then everyone there by a long shot. The goal should not be to put limits in place to make that one worker less efficient so the other workers don't look bad, instead you want to do training (in this case, reworks), to get the other workers up to par.

Also from just a playability standpoint, Macro as an ability just FEELS good. It feels impactful and powerful. Personally it's the only healing ability in the game that feels this way to me. So overall I'm just against it being touched. I instead just look at these other abilities healers have that seem so bad but have potential. I would love for Lilly Bell to be transformed into something that White Mage players have full agency over, that they can choose to pulse it themselves rather then wait for the damage to hit.

[Semirhage]

I'm too cynical for that. I mained WHM from ARR through Stormblood. I've seen competition from two busted overpowered healer jobs claiming that being extremely good at everything is just "good design". I healed through 20% Balance and Scholar doing as much damage as Ninja, while being told those things were "just good design", "WHM just needs to be brought up a little to compete". I've also been around when WHM dares to have a patch where they do more damage than the other healers and the screaming that entails. The thing is, WHM is never, ever going to be a well-designed job so long a Square keeps hammering this awful "pure simple straightforward no frills" fake identity onto it, and the good-at-everything overpowered healers are going to say "there there, I hope they fix you someday" until the heat death of the universe. Square has already demonstrated they'd rather topple the entire design they set forth for both AST and SCH than EVER give WHM anything interesting or fun to do.

I had a point in there somewhere, but it got lost in my being angry about how terribly Square has treated WHM since 3.2. I get what you're saying, but I still think that being good at everything isn't "good design". It's overpowered design that creates role imbalance because it warps the whole role around itself. Everyone else has to be just as overpowered, or be left in the dust.