Possible AST nerf

[Exiled_Tonberry]

If devs start going around with a buffing stick every time there's a balance issue we'll eventually reach a problem with power creep, with super high number and a super high gap between jobs.

This, seriously. I know you don't want your favorite job brought down, but if it needs to happen, it needs to happen. And AST right now just steps all over the other healers. The only thing keeping dual AST from being a thing is cards overlapping. That's how bad it is.

We WILL hit another problem by just infinitely buffing everything. SE really needs to stop being afraid of giving jobs nerfs if they need it.

[Daralii]

This, seriously. I know you don't want your favorite job brought down, but if it needs to happen, it needs to happen. And AST right now just steps all over the other healers. The only thing keeping dual AST from being a thing is cards overlapping. That's how bad it is.

We WILL hit another problem by just infinitely buffing everything. SE really needs to stop being afraid of giving jobs nerfs if they need it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the main outlier SCH because of how bad it is?

[Enla]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the main outlier SCH because of how bad it is?

It's not necessarily that it's bad, though the potency disparity is nothing to sneeze at if you look at the compiled logs on various fansites. We can do the job, but our window for error is so minuscule that one single mistake can cost the party dearly. SCH has always been the class to play if you're the kind of person who memorizes fights, and in that capacity some of their old usefulness does still continue to shine. However we cannot main heal to save our lives, so while we can keep everyone /up/ that doesn't necessarily mean it'll always be at full health. Even then however the reward for learning the best times to pop skills is negligible compared to what the other healers can experience. Leading many SCH main's to wonder why it's even worth it to put in three times the effort for lesser returns.

With that said however, what WHM still lags very far behind AST in sheer terms of versatility and utility in spite of far outstripping SCH at the moment. So while it's in a /better/ spot, it still needs adjustments for optimal balance with AST.

[Miste]

AST right now just steps all over the other healers.

I don't see groups discriminating against WHM or SCH on my DC.

I see PFs daily looking for all the healers for raid statics; WHM and SCH, SCH and AST, WHM and AST. All of them.

Not many groups seem to be excluding WHM or SCH at all unless they already have one in their static and they don't want to stack the same healer job. Some groups might but it seems to be the minority since I haven't seen one specifically say "NO WHMs" or one that didn't have a WHM and specifically said the other healer has to be AST only.

Not to say it doesn't happen, but obviously there are a lot of other statics to choose from if the group doesn't want what job you play. I mean DPS have it worse there are only 4 spots in a static for DPS but there are 9 DPS jobs to fill them.

I see lots of statics seeking WHMs and SCHs equally with ASTs. So I don't know about this whole AST is destroying both the other healers thing. I just don't see actual evidence of this happening even remotely frequently in-game.

this group was hosted by a WHM so they wanted AST or SCH as the second healer

^these only a few screenshots from two different days that I looked. Plenty more if I had kept looking at all hours etc.

In-game it seems people are just playing whichever healer they enjoy playing and plenty of raid statics available for whichever healer they pick. On the forums it seems is where apparently AST is the only healer that exists and is somehow "stepping all over the other healers."

Now this is not saying I'm against nerfs/buffs, before anyone decides to attack me for this post for daring to even slightly defend AST or for pointing out that WHMs and SCHs seem to be just as accepted and wanted by groups. This is just what I see in-game and that there might be a bit of an over exaggeration on the forums about this whole "AST stole our jerbs" thing.

Unfortunately unless we homogenize all the healers to be exact carbon copies of each other (same abilities, same spells, same everything except maybe different animations) then there will always be some imbalance. To make WHM, AST, and SCH all play differently means there will always be some gap between them and the main thing is that each healer needs to be able to hold their own at their primary role which for healers is healing. SCH getting some buffs due to their healing being a little low so that is good, but I assure you WHM can heal and heal powerfully and they also have the highest healer DPS and best MP management.

Simple fact is no content in the game requires AST cards to beat it and there never will be content like that. So if the only way to make WHMs and SCHs happy is to nerf the balance card back to 10% then I guess do it, but really it changes almost nothing. ASTs, WHMs, and SCHs will all still be accepted and taken into statics like above since they can all clear the content together...which is the same as it is now.