Thread: Healer boycott in 5.0

In the interest of constructive criticism, these are the core features of AST that need to return in order for me to break the boycott:
1. Card variety. Only Spire was totally useless on its own. Bole and even Ewer had situational uses. So what if they're not used outside of 4-mans or progression... neither is RDM.
2. Spread and Royal Road. The heart and soul of the card mechanic is long-term planning of your buffs. I feel great when I pull a Balance, and pocket it for later. I feel shit when I redraw a Spire, but at least I can RR or Minor Arcana it.
3. Celestial opposition and/or time dilation. It felt really good to extend a 15% balance, or a double HoT on the party and triple HoT on the tank, or to pop Celestial Opposition in tandem with lightspeed and spam Gravity for 20 seconds on a pack of mobs (your healing obligations taken care of by your triple HoT on the tank). No other class could do anything like that.

What changes I would like to see that would solve some of the problems of AST in 4.0:
1. Remove expanded RR. Either replace it with a new RR effect, or split Spire and Ewer between the other two RR types. It made AST too powerful in raids, and if you had two ASTs in the party you had to tiptoe around overwriting each others' expanded cards.
2. Buff Ewer and change Spire to a Direct Hit or other damage buff. This would make the Ewer/Spire pair match Bole/Balance in terms of having one personal resource buff, and one damage buff, and make it so that all cards have a relatively common use case.

That's all you need to do to balance AST. If it's deemed necessary, I'd accept a hit to existing damage buffs even aside from Expanded RR... but having every single card become a simple "buff melee" or "buff ranged" card kills the class for me. The easy-to-learn, hard-to-master nature of the card mechanic is what drew me in; extending buffs was just the icing on the cake. I loved thinking ahead to plan out my redraws, spreads, RRs, and minor arcana burns. I loved finding the best party member to give a buff to, especially because it rewarded knowledge of how other jobs play (Arrow goes to SAM and BLM, Spear to BRD). But despite this depth, it was an easy enough system for new astrologians to get into - put damage cards on DPS, Bole on the tank, Ewer on anyone low on mana, and Spire... well, nobody is saying that Spire needs to stay as-is.

These AST changes take one of the most unique healing classes in any MMO, and homogenize it into nothing special. I don't care that the rDPS has been nerfed. I care that the fun and depth of the class has been nerfed.

I've been a ride or die sch since 2.0, I'm gonna keep on trucking and enjoy the instant ques caused by this boycott.

I'm definitely not healing until significant changes have been made to both AST and SCH. Me and 3/5ths of my FC unsubbed today.

If they don't run the track back on this there will be a backlash, and no amount of "Wait and see" Squenix brown nosing is going to mitigate that.

Why not just wait for 5.0 to come out, try healing with the new changes, and then make a decision if you're going to continue doing it or not?

I get the frustration and being vocal about it (I play sch myself as my main healer), but already saying you're going to drop it before even trying it isn't really adding to the credibility.

I'm going to try all the jobs(Tanks/Healers/DPS) I normally play and if I don't agree with the changes after trying them I'll be vocal about them with others.

Originally Posted by Alrin

I play mainly healer classes so I was sad when they said there will not be new healer in 5.0. I told myself: Ok they are reworking existing healers instead so wait and see. That can be actually a good thing.

Now when changes are out I am...not really happy and I am thinking about changing main from AST to WHM since cards were main reason I liked that class and they changed that to the point I dont see how I can like that.

But as you said. Time will tell. I will try every healer class at max level and after that I will make my decision.

I agree with 90% you said, but... why change to WHM? It got nothing, it will be just as clunky, maybe even more so, than the other healers, and will still be able to do less for a party than AST. So, why switch at all?

Originally Posted by Rinkalos

I'm definitely not healing until significant changes have been made to both AST and SCH. Me and 3/5ths of my FC unsubbed today.

If they don't run the track back on this there will be a backlash, and no amount of "Wait and see" Squenix brown nosing is going to mitigate that.

Wait... so you flat out quit the game over changes you haven't played yet? You don't even know WHY said change was made do you? Well that's silly of you to do. How would you even know the change you want is even in place if you flat out threw out your game? Seems abit like over acting if you ask me.

Originally Posted by Insertcoins

Wait... so you flat out quit the game over changes you haven't played yet? You don't even know WHY said change was made do you? Well that's silly of you to do. How would you even know the change you want is even in place if you flat out threw out your game? Seems abit like over acting if you ask me.

Welcome to the FF14 forums. Where people go to get overly dramatic about stuff.