I have to rant about AST cards

[Zeastria]

Well I mean we used to have AOE cards but you had to sacrifice another card to do it which was a good system and would have worked way better if balance wasn’t that good

Adding AOE cards that was basically just “draw 2” would just be more button bloat, if you could stack them then it’s more stuff to shove into AST’s overcrowded burst window and a massive damage buff to AST which is already hard to balance because of how buff heavy it is

It's not a button bloat if the ability is just 1 button..
Let's say you rework [Minor Arcana] into a card deck - when click on it you have x% to get x card..
The card effect would be more like: Inc healing taken, reduce damage taken, inc mp reg.. stuff like that.
It's RNG - you take what you get + can't change the card..so you must play it to get a new one..
Since ability is AOE -> it's all in 1 button that alternate itself on use. ( like one we have in PvP)..

[ForsakenRoe]

-WHM- GCD healing doesn’t work in this game

I think Lilies work fine, the issue is that now that they're damage neutral, they're actually damage positive because of raidbuffs, so you get this degen-gameplay come up where you're meant to purposely waste lilies to prep Misery for raidbuffs. If you mean ye olde heals like Medica and Cure, yeh they're kinda bleh. If they want to have healing be OGCD focused, they need to give WHM some more to compete on that front, like making Lilybell have a shorter CD (with less stacks to rebalance), or shortening the CD on Asylum. If they want WHM to remain the 'GCD focused healer' in an OGCD focused game, then there's just gonna forever be a conflict of design philosophy that will stick out

hard to balance because of how buff heavy it is

I'd argue the opposite: AST is easier to balance now, for sure. However, I don't think it's cos of the cards being made uniform per se, but the fact that we cannot AOE them anymore. Functionally speaking, the potential results, once per minute (thanks to draw being 30s but needing to RR a Spire or Ewer every other card) for old AST ranged from 'this is Divination (5% increased damage for 15s)' to 'this is zero damage increase' (Bole/Ewer/Spire). The damage swing was crazy, and especially because it could be once per minute, instead of once per 2min as Divination now is. By having Divination be a guaranteed, 'this happens at the 2min window', skill, and the cards be singletarget only, it's a lot easier to know how much extra DPS is going to be generated by those cards. So, I'm of the opinion that we absolutely could have interesting varied card effects again, as long as we keep them single target. Buffing allies in an AOE is what we have Divination for. Besides, when you get a tarot reading, it's a reading of 'your' fate, not 'you and also the 7 people who are nearby, including the fortuneteller', right? I don't speak for everyone, nor can I know what they'd prefer, but I imagine there's a fair few people who would make the trade of 'We get cards with unique, different effects again, BUT! they remain single target only, to keep them balanceable'. Mostly because they're already single target only, so we're not exactly 'losing' anything compared to what we're at now

It's not a button bloat if the ability is just 1 button..

When they say button bloat, I assume they mean 'its another thing we'd have to press which increases the already painful APM of the class', not 'it takes another hotbar space', although we're kinda yikers on that front too

[FlutterYuu]

I don't speak for everyone, nor can I know what they'd prefer, but I imagine there's a fair few people who would make the trade of 'We get cards with unique, different effects again, BUT! they remain single target only, to keep them balanceable'. Mostly because they're already single target only, so we're not exactly 'losing' anything compared to what we're at now

I would hope we get this in 7.0 or something fun to play. I love all these jobs in one way or another and Healers were my favorite (now its tanks cuz i can never play dps im too impatient for the dps queue) They need to be more engaging, I know a lot of us are unsatisfied and have to wait for 7.0, but i wish they'd make these changes sooner. But I trust they'll fix AST. and hopefully make the other healers fun

[vetch]

It's not a button bloat if the ability is just 1 button..

How do you think hotbars get bloated in the first place? Every button added is 'just one button'.

[ForsakenRoe]

But I trust they'll fix AST. and hopefully make the other healers fun

I'm glad you have optimism about it, but I cannot help but think 'the devs who designed AST into the hole it is in, are the ones who are going to be getting it back out (supposedly)'. If they were taking feedback from players, ie doing surveys and such, I could believe it more, but it seems like they're just gonna bulldoze ahead with an idea they've got, without looking for any external input

[Supersnow845]

I'm glad you have optimism about it, but I cannot help but think 'the devs who designed AST into the hole it is in, are the ones who are going to be getting it back out (supposedly)'. If they were taking feedback from players, ie doing surveys and such, I could believe it more, but it seems like they're just gonna bulldoze ahead with an idea they've got, without looking for any external input

If the devs had any idea what to do with healers we wouldn’t have 4 flavours of watered down WHM

[Zeastria]

How do you think hotbars get bloated in the first place? Every button added is 'just one button'.

True... However in this case we replace an already existing button with another one... so the total number stays the same.

[FlutterYuu]

I'm glad you have optimism about it, but I cannot help but think 'the devs who designed AST into the hole it is in, are the ones who are going to be getting it back out (supposedly)'. If they were taking feedback from players, ie doing surveys and such, I could believe it more, but it seems like they're just gonna bulldoze ahead with an idea they've got, without looking for any external input

I don't believe FFXIV devs are separate from these forums. There are plenty of examples of the FFXIV team either reversing or making better changes. I mean BRD used to cast in Heavensward and that was reversed. Plus SMN is in a better position and now feels like you're a SMN instead of a DoT Mage. We just have to make our issues known, and they'll fix it. They've done it before. Maybe it's not as fast as we are used to with other dev teams, I do admit that, but the FFXIV team listen to us and always have.

[Supersnow845]

I don't believe FFXIV devs are separate from these forums. There are plenty of examples of the FFXIV team either reversing or making better changes. I mean BRD used to cast in Heavensward and that was reversed. Plus SMN is in a better position and now feels like you're a SMN instead of a DoT Mage. We just have to make our issues known, and they'll fix it. They've done it before. Maybe it's not as fast as we are used to with other dev teams, I do admit that, but the FFXIV team listen to us and always have.

We have been crying into the void for literal years about the healer change in ShB and all they have done is double and triple down despite there being functionally zero evidence anyone actually prefers the newer healers over the older ones

Job satisfaction crashed, relative player numbers crashed, the forums exploded with negative feedback, what do we have 3 years later, an even worse WHM, a new healer that was basically Just SCH’s rework split off into its own class and a pointless healer “distinction” nobody asked for

[SweetPete]

I’m not sure what they have planned for 7.0 with the summoner sized rework for Astro/DRG but hopefully it will be good.

Sadly SE will never win in this case. Back when healers were different AST/SCH were supreme. As Astro had crazy aoe card buffs and sch fairy was ridiculously op and you could use the fairy skills while using other skills. Whm was left in the dust and even ousted from party finder during some raids.

Though I do agree the healers need to be changed and be different again. Will we go back to certain ones reigning supreme and the others being shafted by the playerbase because they don’t bring more than the others?

Honestly, this has been the most balanced the healers have ever been and none are shafted from raids. They all get to shine. It’s just took them being ridiculously homogenized. Sadly.

I want them to find a healthy balance so all healers can be different again yet all bring something special to raids so all can shine.

Just my opinion.