The rationale behind nerfing WHM and SCH?

[Annah]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but is there an actual explanation behind Yoshi's team nerfing the WHM?

I thought they wanted a WHM to be a pure healer right? Not sure I understand why they've removed so many of their healing and protection aspects.

[Kabzy]

They didn't really nerf WHM, they just didn't give them much. The only issue of WHMs they addressed was mana recovery.

SCH got nerfed hard. But even sadder is how much its gameplay has changed because our DPS is essentially a carbon copy of WHM now. Maybe they wanted to make SCH terrible so that it's competitive with WHM at least. Cause we all know AST is god tier atm. xD

[LunaFaye]

They didn't really nerf WHM, they just didn't give them much. The only issue of WHMs they addressed was mana recovery.

SCH got nerfed hard. But even sadder is how much its gameplay has changed because our DPS is essentially a carbon copy of WHM now. Maybe they wanted to make SCH terrible so that it's competitive with WHM at least. Cause we all know AST is god tier atm. xD

Nah they wanted you guys to feel the pain that WHM experienced in 2.x. AS they weren't allowed or taken and it was SCH slot. Then as WHM and AST got still nailed throughout 3.x, SCH's didn't have to worry 'bout a thing. Now with 4.0 it's SCH's turn. At least SCH and WHM can both sit outside on the bench, would suck if we just single out WHM again.

[Kabzy]

Nah they wanted you guys to feel the pain that WHM experienced in 2.x. AS they weren't allowed or taken and it was SCH slot. Then as WHM and AST got still nailed throughout 3.x, SCH's didn't have to worry 'bout a thing. Now with 4.0 it's SCH's turn. At least SCH and WHM can both sit outside on the bench, would suck if we just single out WHM again.

You're missing part of the point here. I could deal with SCH being the weakest (it probably is atm), because good players can still make a job shine. But losing our core playstyle, identity and basically becoming a copy of the other two healers is extremely lame. Nerfs are fine, and probably needed to some extent, but changing a playstyle to become less engaging is really not. A shame that SE decided to dumb down arguably one of their best designed jobs since 2.x.

[Ametrine]

It does feel like Scholar is being put in an identical spot as White Mage. So far, though, I like this newer Scholar.

But why is Astrologian so broken now?
Have our complaints over the near useless unless you pull a balance card RNG given them the wrong idea that Astrologian was unappealing or too weak, still??

[Verdan]

It does feel like Scholar is being put in an identical spot as White Mage. So far, though, I like this newer Scholar.

But why is Astrologian so broken now?
Have our complaints over the near useless unless you pull a balance card RNG given them the wrong idea that Astrologian was unappealing or too weak, still??

The Ast's bad design means this is going to keep happening forever. It can't be a copy of the white mage with shields, that's just never going to work. It'll either be too weak because they're trying to balance for utility and choice, be too powerful because it has the same capabilities but additional utility.

Or they could somehow fail amazingly and make it too powerful because it has stronger heals, shields, AND the good cards while everything costs less mana. That could happen too, but who would manage to make THAT mistake? No developer would ever do that! Either way, the Ast will always be a problem until they rework the class. Maybe in the expansion where they add a tank and a healer to figure out DPS class balance they'll get rebuilt to make sense. For now, it's best to pretend it doesn't exist if you don't wanna play it.

[MomomiMomi]

The Ast's bad design means this is going to keep happening forever. It can't be a copy of the white mage with shields, that's just never going to work. It'll either be too weak because they're trying to balance for utility and choice, be too powerful because it has the same capabilities but additional utility.

The problem lies with WHM mostly. The fact that all they have is heals means that every healer ever will be "WHM plus more."

[Risvertasashi]

The problem lies with WHM mostly. The fact that all they have is heals means that every healer ever will be "WHM plus more."

Not really, no. Other MMOs manage to give healers very different playstyles while still accomplishing essentially the same core function.

Cloning the WHM kit and slapping cards on top of that... it's purely lack of any creative thought from the dev team. And even then, they could simply make WHM stronger instead of... as has been mentioning, giving AST stronger heals AND all the utility.

[MomomiMomi]

Not really, no. Other MMOs manage to give healers very different playstyles while still accomplishing essentially the same core function.

Cloning the WHM kit and slapping cards on top of that... it's purely lack of any creative thought from the dev team. And even then, they could simply make WHM stronger instead of... as has been mentioning, giving AST stronger heals AND all the utility.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that if:

1. A job has heals and nothing else
2. All jobs must be able to heal well enough.

That the job that has only heals is going to get left out. A pure healer is just bad design.

[Verdan]

The problem lies with WHM mostly. The fact that all they have is heals means that every healer ever will be "WHM plus more."

Except the scholar was a totally different class. The white mage's lack of identity besides "heals good" is a problem, but the ast heals almost exactly the same as white mage in their white mage stance, and heals like a white mage with succor and an instant aldo in their scholar stance. There is no way to balance the power of these abilities well. It's not good healer design, and there's no way the ast ever works right until it changes.