What are the AST changes that everyone wants, realistically speaking.

[Supersnow845]

If anything the corner they've painted themselves into is even smaller now. At least an expansion ago they could pretend that WHM was the "personal output" healer. That it never lived up to that title was a different story. Now that Sage has barged onto the scene and made off with the "personal damage" part of that identity, WHM can't even pretend to hold onto an identity with the atoms on the tips of its fingernails. Now it doesn't even theoretically bring anything to the table. It's just "worse (fill in the blank)" for every single category.

SGE and WHM do have essentially equal damage now so I could see them latching onto like a “buff vs selfish healer” kinda meta completely ignoring the fact that there is basically no situation where the buff healers don’t end up being stronger (especially SCH who’s buff is incredibly strong but also requires like no effort to press, at least you have to have skills to maximise AST’s buffs as clunky as they are)

[HyoMinPark]

SGE and WHM do have essentially equal damage now so I could see them latching onto like a “buff vs selfish healer” kinda meta completely ignoring the fact that there is basically no situation where the buff healers don’t end up being stronger (especially SCH who’s buff is incredibly strong but also requires like no effort to press, at least you have to have skills to maximise AST’s buffs as clunky as they are)

This is my concern: with the introduction of SGE also being a selfish healer, I feel like the devs will just double down on the buffs/no-buffs dichotomy the same way they doubled down on regen healers and barrier healers. Which means WHM simply doesn’t stand a chance.
Also the regen/barrier split will likely mean our chances of ever getting a new healer are slim, since it would be 3-2 either way and unbalanced. Not that I’m exactly eager to get a fifth healer that plays literally like the other four because we can’t have diversity in this game…

The only reasons WHM is played more than AST is 1. Final Fantasy staple, 2. Braindead simple, and 3. AST is a clunky nightmare that also just upsets a lot of the veteran AST players because of how gutted it is now. I personally play WHM more than AST because it doesn’t require use of my brain, and I don’t want to deal with AST’s clunkiness and horrible card/Seal system. Despite it being the first healer I played in this game and my favorite until ShB destroyed everything I loved about it.

I don’t think AST could ever surpass WHM even if it played as smooth as butter due to WHM’s popularity—but the popularity of the job just assures the developers that nothing will be done. Dev logic would be “Well look, though: it’s the most popular healer so it’s obviously fine like it is!”

[Supersnow845]

This is my concern: with the introduction of SGE also being a selfish healer, I feel like the devs will just double down on the buffs/no-buffs dichotomy the same way they doubled down on regen healers and barrier healers. Which means WHM simply doesn’t stand a chance.
Also the regen/barrier split will likely mean our chances of ever getting a new healer are slim, since it would be 3-2 either way and unbalanced. Not that I’m exactly eager to get a fifth healer that plays literally like the other four because we can’t have diversity in this game…

The only reasons WHM is played more than AST is 1. Final Fantasy staple, 2. Braindead simple, and 3. AST is a clunky nightmare that also just upsets a lot of the veteran AST players because of how gutted it is now. I personally play WHM more than AST because it doesn’t require use of my brain, and I don’t want to deal with AST’s clunkiness and horrible card/Seal system. Despite it being the first healer I played in this game and my favorite until ShB destroyed everything I loved about it.

I don’t think AST could ever surpass WHM even if it played as smooth as butter due to WHM’s popularity—but the popularity of the job just assures the developers that nothing will be done. Dev logic would be “Well look, though: it’s the most popular healer so it’s obviously fine like it is!”

The balance of the regen healers is just so bad at the moment because of the corner they have backed themselves into with how they have designed healers, AST is always playing second fiddle to WHM because of WHM’s undying popularity no matter how bad it is (remember when it was still the most popular healer even during the toilet paper lily phase) and AST certainly isn’t giving people many reasons to actually like it, then you just have the simple fact that from a utility and ease of run perspective the shield healers are just so much stronger in 99% of content (like what does the regen healer even do in DSR until like phase 6). Both these add up to WHM always being left behind but since everything is designed around WHM because of its undying popularity WHM continues to be a chain around the ankle of collective healer design

[Semirhage]

because of its undying popularity WHM continues to be a chain around the ankle of collective healer design

Pretty much this. This is why I keep saying fix WHM and the rest falls into place from there. Not because WHM necessarily deserves to be first in line or anything like that, but because the role will keep getting dragged back down into the mud so long as one of the healers "must" remain boring and uninspired, with zero utility or stand-out strengths. How do you balance healers against that garbage? You make them all equally boring and uninspired. This will be the cycle until they free their whipping job from its cage.

[Supersnow845]

Pretty much this. This is why I keep saying fix WHM and the rest falls into place from there. Not because WHM necessarily deserves to be first in line or anything like that, but because the role will keep getting dragged back down into the mud so long as one of the healers "must" remain boring and uninspired, with zero utility or stand-out strengths. How do you balance healers against that garbage? You make them all equally boring and uninspired. This will be the cycle until they free their whipping job from its cage.

I still believe the healer rework of 5.0 was in response to the toilet paper lily fiasco, since it’s impossible that WHM can be seen as bad by the community they had to bring every other healer down to WHM’s level so that wouldn’t be a problem again

All because they designed a mechanic involving RNG single target GCD heal fishing for a worthless perk