General Healer Discussion [The Echo Chamber]

[Nizzi]

So according to the census from February, there are slightly more whm and astros that are max level than sages and scholars. However, when accounting for ilvl in an October census, end game white mages and sages who have savage ilvl gear greatly outnumber astrologians and scholars with similar gear. Astrologian was actually kind of popular last tier.

February census: https://ffxivcensus.com/#class

Lucky Blancho's population by ilvl in october: https://i.imgur.com/t6eJLaj.png

Reddit for lucky blancho's post, which includes job disparity charts on top of the population chart from above: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus..._october_2022/

Astro was actually kind of popular last tier when the healing checks were easier, primarily because it added much needed stimulation for some players. That being said, when the difficulty in healing spiked, apparently its extraneous features became a hindrance rather than a source of amusement. If they can get the scholar and astrologian toolkits on the same page as the white mage and sage, we're basically golden.

I'm unsure of why you continue to build narratives and draw conclusions that aren't there solely to suit your own opinions. Astrologian was more popular last tier for a number of reasons:

WHM didn't get DPS neutral Lilies until 6.1, making WHM more punishing to heal on as its primary healing mechanic was a DPS loss
They hadn't announced the Astrologian rework, and also had not subsequently then announced that nothing would be reworked until 7.0 - currently leaving AST in a state where if you were unhappy with 6.0 changes you'll just wait until 7.0, and also leaving people who may be happy with it in a place where they see no reason to get invested in trying to learn the job when it is guaranteed to be heavily changed in a year-ish anyways.
Macrocosmos completely invalidating the P3S heal check, "Death's Toll" with a press of 1 button, instead of relying on both healers to press multiple buttons to heal the party to full.
The amount of effort and strain required to play Astrologian optimally versus every other healer compared to the reward put into it. Astrologian's 6.0 changes satisfied very few and made the job significantly clunkier than it was in Shadowbringers.

Also: Scholar and Astrologian have always been played less than White Mage. Simplying their job mechanics by changing cards and removal of SCH's DPS kit has done nothing to appeal to the players who play White Mage. It's almost as if people who play White Mage will not go to Scholar or Astrologian no matter how much you make the jobs "WHM but fairy" and "WHM but card".

If they can get the scholar and astrologian toolkits on the same page as the white mage and sage, we're basically golden.

"We're golden" by making Scholar and Astrologian worse? Scholar is the most played healer in DSR due to how great it's healing kit is; just because you don't like something doesn't mean it needs to change - just play White Mage or Sage.

[Fendred]

I'm unsure of why you continue to build narratives and draw conclusions that aren't there solely to suit your own opinions. Astrologian was more popular last tier for a number of reasons:

WHM didn't get DPS neutral Lilies until 6.1, making WHM more punishing to heal on as its primary healing mechanic was a DPS loss
They hadn't announced the Astrologian rework, and also had not subsequently then announced that nothing would be reworked until 7.0 - currently leaving AST in a state where if you were unhappy with 6.0 changes you'll just wait until 7.0, and also leaving people who may be happy with it in a place where they see no reason to get invested in trying to learn the job when it is guaranteed to be heavily changed in a year-ish anyways.
Macrocosmos completely invalidating the P3S heal check, "Death's Toll" with a press of 1 button, instead of relying on both healers to press multiple buttons to heal the party to full.
The amount of effort and strain required to play Astrologian optimally versus every other healer compared to the reward put into it. Astrologian's 6.0 changes satisfied very few and made the job significantly clunkier than it was in Shadowbringers.

Also: Scholar and Astrologian have always been played less than White Mage. Simplying their job mechanics by changing cards and removal of SCH's DPS kit has done nothing to appeal to the players who play White Mage. It's almost as if people who play White Mage will not go to Scholar or Astrologian no matter how much you make the jobs "WHM but fairy" and "WHM but card".



"We're golden" by making Scholar and Astrologian worse? Scholar is the most played healer in DSR due to how great it's healing kit is; just because you don't like something doesn't mean it needs to change - just play White Mage or Sage.

When I said they were more popular, I just meant that from my anecdotal experience of seeing more astrologians during the first tier of raiding. What the numbers say is that when healers do savage, the white mage handedly defeats astrologian, with sage/scholar being tied depending on region. We can say this because the February census show that people are leveling all the healers pretty uniformly. It's only when these jobs get stress tested via savage content that players lean heavily towards white mage over astrologian. The October census chart suggests sage is preferred over scholar, but the regional healer differences between Japan and the US indicate it may be a cultural difference.

There is an overall healer shortage, so pretty much the whole healer role is problematic. However, high complexity is clearly not the answer given the astrologian's position in these charts. Working within the current system, a focus on functionality would be a more immediate solution. That's all I really mean.

[ASkellington]

There is an overall healer shortage, so pretty much the whole healer role is problematic. However, high complexity is clearly not the answer given the astrologian's position in these charts. Working within the current system, a focus on functionality would be a more immediate solution. That's all I really mean.

High complexity is not the reason why AST is lower.

AST isn't complex. Its perceived as complex but there is nothing complex about the job if you choose to main it, same as any other healer.

AST is needlessly busy.

The cards, mean nothing because of the Seals system. The Seals system is garbage because for all the work you put into it underneath the Divination window it amounts to BARELY ANYTHING. And on top of that AST feels clunky switching off and on targets thanks to SE not wanting to work with a better tab targeting system. (oh and Draw/Play still aren't one button)

And that's not even taking into account that people left the job previously because of the way AST is currently (old cards vs seals system + removal of Nocturnal Sect)

Reinstating the older cards in some what would actually reduce the bloat, because you aren't trying to "wait 30s so you have 3 draws of seals, Lightspeed, Divination, Play/Draw, Play/Draw, Play/Astrodyne with Malefics squeezed in" provided Divination stays as RR Balance and the cards are extra buffs.

[ForsakenRoe]

my anecdotal experience

You probably shouldn't use 'my anecdotal experience' and then try to back it up with evidence, that's the wrong way round. You should be looking at the evidence for a pattern, and if your anecdotal experience matches it, that helps prove the theory but it's not 100% set in stone. The logic you pose (AST played less than WHM, therefore we should make AST as simple as WHM) is wrong imo for several reasons, firstly that the constant 'we have to make it as simple as WHM' is how we got all the healers losing their DOTs, secondly, it is ignoring all the reasons people may have played AST in the last tier and why they wouldn't now (for example, say, the last boss is overtuned and relying on other players via raidbuffs is less 'safe' for meeting the DPS check vs going personal-DPS with WHM?)

Third, (this one gets its own paragraph) a LOT of the players who have logs as healer are not AST players, or WHM players, they're 'healer players'. That is, they swap about based on what is the best for the team. I am a dyed-in-the-wool WHM, but recently I've been seeing PFs missing Barrier Healers when I go for the P8S reclear, so I play Sage more. Does this swap me to being a Sage main? I learned all of phase 1 of P4S as AST, despite not liking AST much in it's EW incarnation, why? Because WHM was BAD on MP economy at the time and I didn't feel like stacking 600 piety just to make up for SE's cockup. I also did P3S reclears on AST every time, because Macrocosmos completely removed the heal check in Life's Agonies, not just for me, but for my cohealer too. Does this mean I was an AST main for that tier? My Allstar ranking seems to think so, but I actually got pretty even parses across all four healers. The only reason I can see why it's thinking I was an 'AST main' is because I didn't get a single parse of P3S as WHM. But my best for 1 is SCH, 2 is WHM, 3 is tied between AST and SGE, 4-1 is AST and 4-2 is WHM. I'd hazard a guess that a fair few healers are like me, swapping about either because of fight design or just to try to find SOME variety in the role

Fourth, correlation does not equal causation, as you will know. But if the logic of 'AST less logs than WHM, must be cos hard', surely we'd have to apply that to all the other classes, at which point the theory falls apart? WAR isn't harder than GNB in almost anyone's books, but it's got less parses (because it had lower damage in a very tightly tuned/overtuned tier). DNC has more parses than BRD and MCH combined, does this mean we should look at making them like Dancer? Remove BRD's DOTs, restore the RNG on the 123 combo for MCH? BLM has around half the parses of SMN, I guess we should remove the complexity of BLM so more people try it out? This is all rhetorical of course, we shouldn't change the design of a class completely based just on 'how many people play in savag' because every one of those players will have different reasons WHY they play that class in savage. Yeh, AST's harder to work with than WHM, it's got more moving parts to keep on top of. But some people play for the aesthetic, some play because they didn't level the alternative classes in the role, some people play specifically because it's 'harder', and they enjoy the extra challenge.

Heck, one of my two claims to fame in this game is that back in SB I was top allstars ranking for my server for DRK. This wasn't because I was good, believe me, I was dog-doo bad compared to the worldwide top players. It was because nobody else on my server played it. Despite all the naysaying, the 'its bad play WAR', the people who played DRK back then made it work, for whatever reason. Me, it was because I had mained WAR in 4.1 (then SE made it idiotproof with 'haha 5 fellcleaves IR'), then PLD in 4.2/4.3, and when they did the big DRK changelist of 4.3 I started dabbling more and more, until deciding I'd main it in 4.4, come hell or high water. I played it partially cos I liked the speed at the time, partially because DarkMind+TBN was hilarious for removing tankbusters from the fight (WARs not knowing what to do without cover on O12S always made me laugh), and partially because I'm a salty Brit who would 100% main something that everyone claims is 'bad' just to prove they're bloody idiots who should stop parroting what they hear on Youtube tier list videos. Now look where we are, DRK a shadow (lmao) of itself too, made into WAR 2 with the SHB rework because people said 'dont like dark arts pls fix' instead of playing a different job. Starting to feel like I'm cursed, every time I main a class, it gets made boring/poopy/not-fun so y'all better watch out before I start maining yours and make that suck too. Maybe I should be a BLM main and watch the universe implode

Also, as someone else mentioned, 'AST is too complex' isn't exactly true, considering me of all people was able to pick it up and get to the P4S doorboss enrage, week 1. Didn't clear though, many 50% enrages due to lack of damage. Sure would be nice if I could see who's pumping, and therefore who to card, SE!

[Nizzi]

When I said they were more popular, I just meant that from my anecdotal experience of seeing more astrologians during the first tier of raiding. What the numbers say is that when healers do savage, the white mage handedly defeats astrologian, with sage/scholar being tied depending on region. We can say this because the February census show that people are leveling all the healers pretty uniformly. It's only when these jobs get stress tested via savage content that players lean heavily towards white mage over astrologian. The October census chart suggests sage is preferred over scholar, but the regional healer differences between Japan and the US indicate it may be a cultural difference.

There is an overall healer shortage, so pretty much the whole healer role is problematic. However, high complexity is clearly not the answer given the astrologian's position in these charts. Working within the current system, a focus on functionality would be a more immediate solution. That's all I really mean.

Apologies for the following wall of text:

The thing is that this has always been the case across expansions. Back during Shadowbringers when AST was in a better spot with its cards and WHM was arguably in the worst spot due to being a turret mage and having no way to heal without losing DPS. This has always been the case between the White Mage and Astrologian dichotomy. White Mage is just more popular, even though AST has always enjoyed the luxurious spot of being a better healer in practically every regard to WHM, even down to AST's GCDs being better despite being copies of White Mages.
This is the problem with changing kits based on numbers, or trying to change jobs to appeal to people who don't have any interest in playing them. Aesthetics can carry a job a long way, and that holds true even into Savage where people typically take jobs they are more comfortable on rather than playing meta picks, especially when healers are so tightly balanced (relative to DPS or tank jobs, at least) which can further compound the effort to play Astrologian optimally feeling like a waste of time when you can play White Mage and perform similarly numerically with less effort.

Aesthetics carrying White Mage as the most popular job in the game has always been true for White Mage, especially after the huge changes to AST and SCH in Shadowbringers - White Mage players are not swapping to AST or SCH despite them being better numerically and on HPS, or in ShB AST's case vs ShB WHM, able to move& heal freely without losing DPS. I think Square Enix should try to come up with an answer for this question - if White Mage is the most popular job in the game; how is it that despite what they've done to healer complexity and DPS in ShB onward to make them "simple" like White Mage, healer is the least played role across all content in the game and is only getting worse?

I don't think:

It's only when these jobs get stress tested via savage content that players lean heavily towards white mage over astrologian

is necessarily fair assessment because when we look at the actual HEALING throughput of these jobs, WHM has the lowest HPS of all four healers across Abyssos. So are players picking WHM because it performs better under stress despite it numerically being worse than AST, SCH and SGE in terms of healing? (Overheal aside) Probably not. Rather, it's a multitude of factors that I don't think anyone will ever be able to understand fully. Rather, I think SE should go back to making this role as diverse as possible to appeal to people that they've lost with healer changes, and also appeal to new people who don't like healers as they are now. SE trying to funnel some of the WHM player base into Astrologian and Scholar hasn't worked in the past, so I'm really uncertain why they keep trying to do it.

ASkellington's post pretty much sums my feelings about AST proper - it's hard to say the job is complex; rather it is needlessly busy for very little reward compared to WHM, especially after Misery no longer being a DPS loss in 6.1. A good example of a job with complexity in Endwalker is Black Mage; it is very simple on a base level and intuitive, but if you're curious, take a look at The Balance's optimization guides and see all the cool complexities that BLM has with nonstandard lines, transpose optimization, etc. This is what every healer should strive for - obviously in varying levels and less than a DPS, but I believe they should all be simple to pick up with more meat on the bones in terms of complexity than they currently have.

Working within the current system, a focus on functionality would be a more immediate solution. That's all I really mean.

I agree with this, and this is why I feel like SE's decision to not rework DRG and AST following the SAM outcry over Kaiten was a huge double edged sword and really, really bad for healers. Dragoons definitely won there, but Astrologian lost. Astrologian definitely needs a rework; the job is in an awful state and essentially gets to remain in it's bloated, RSI inducing state until early 2024. In fact, this entire design philosophy shift is bad for healers because it essentially means there's nothing that SE will do to fix the healer drought this expansion outside of just making Savage easier - which does nothing for the casual content where healers are also consistently in need and instant queues. Astrologian is in a very bad state, and the healer role in general is; I just don't further "WHM-ification" is what will appeal to people who have left the role or have no interest in it due to the lack of engagement within it.

As a minor note, if you go to the site that shall not be named and look at "deaths" it gives a total list of all logs uploaded, and you can sort by that to see what healers are being played in Savage rather than just using Lucky Bancho's "if they have a 615 or higher weapon" statistics (which I think are valuable themselves) and interestingly, Scholar is the second most played healer this tier, and for DSR, even Astrologian is played more than Sage.