The Healer Double Standard

[althenawhm]

WHM and AST didn't get gutted. WHM lost aero 3, but gained afflatus misery, which imo looks a lot more interesting to use and optimize than a button you press every 24 seconds. AST has the same DPS kit, but has a more interesting card system now.

AST cards got incredibly simplified, and WHM was only slightly buffed but please remember that WHM is already kind of bad as it stands right now.

[kidalutz]

I don't think that gif states anything definitive. It seems to me that if they stated that they don't like taking away abilities and nerfing stuff, then actually doing so should've been a monumental debate. For lack of a better set of words, I don't think they took gutting SCH lightly.

Although, they certainly haven't been 100% consistent on "bringing the bottom up" on everything, for the most part they seem to be following those ideals. They haven't straight up nerfed a whole lot of things, and in general most of the changes do in fact seem geared towards raising the skill floor.

And I'm not disagreeing with healers on this, particularly SCH - they got gutted af and no one can really deny that. It's just, I don't think they did it to spite anyone. Clearly they have a longer term goal in mind than most of the playerbase considers and we aren't exactly privy to what that is.

they have to look 3 years or so into the future figure whats going to do what in a hundred more item levels the VAST skill gap in players on top of whats going to do what next expansion most players cant even look towards what theyre going to be doing tomorrow let alone a couple years down the road.

[Semirhage]

WHM...didn't get gutted.

Can't really gut something that barely had substance to begin with.

[Yuyuka3]

Can't really gut something that barely had substance to begin with.

Also something that got gutted just as bad as SCH now only one expac before. There honestly isn't even anything left for them to gut without making the job complete garbage.

[Melichoir]

snipped

Guess what - To make sure healers are more inline with one another, and to balance them with how they interact with other classes and upcoming mechanic changes/new mechanics in ShB, this will mean that nerfing/buffing will occur. And we will lose skills. This isnt news. This is to be expected. People think that Scholar is some exception to this cause doing some DPS skills that are from ARC defines SCH, and as a result of having those skills trimmed, you no longer are a "Scholar." And then its "Oh boy, the devs are super disconnected! They dont know what we want! The Liars!"

Seriously, this is a silly ass pov. SCH got trimmed from DPS to be more in line with other healers, and got some more healing ability as compensation. How that fits in with other classes along with mechanic changes has yet to be absolutely seen. Hell, even Yoshi P in the post says "We want to avoid...". That isnt him saying they will never take skills away from anyone. Thats them saying that they want to set it up where things dont get removed from a players kit if possible. For them to balance out healers, this outcome was to be expected.

Furthermore, Youre not a scholar cause you can cast Miasma or Energy Drain. Youre a scholar cause you can summon a fairy and use fairy + healing skills to restore allies. Thats your class identity - having a fairy and doing things with the fairy. Not set the fairy to auto heal while you spam away a small dps rotation that stems predominately from ARC (yes I know this is an oversimplification.)

This would be telling people youre no longer a paladin when they removed your ability to use Raise people or have Protect, both which were from the requirement of being a lvl 15 Conjuror along with being a lvl 30 GLD.

No matter what anyone says, youre still a scholar, you still have your fairy, and you still do healing. These are what define your class, not that you had a few DPS spells from your base class.

If people are more concerned with doing all the deeps but want to do some support, then reroll a DPS class like Dancer or SMN.

I dunno, maybe Im just super annoyed at this point that SCH are being denied something or 'losing their identity'. That god forbid the devs rework classes, and balance, and everyone's class has to be subject to those changes. I dont understand this mentality that somehow every class changes, the battle system is likely changing some too, as well as dungeon and boss design, but SCH has to remain 100% untouched, or at the least, they gotta be special and have both a robust healing kit that is on par with WHM and AST, as well as a functional (albeit semi-limited) DPS kit too. And then acting hurt when the devs say "Hey, we want SCH to be more Healing Orientated, just like the other 2 healers." and make changes that put them more in line with the other 2.

Grah. Ok thats enough angry potato for a minute or two.

[Brandedblade]

Guess what - To make sure healers are more inline with one another, and to balance them with how they interact with other classes and upcoming mechanic changes/new mechanics in ShB, this will mean that nerfing/buffing will occur. And we will lose skills. This isnt news. This is to be expected. People think that Scholar is some exception to this cause doing some DPS skills that are from ARC defines SCH, and as a result of having those skills trimmed, you no longer are a "Scholar." And then its "Oh boy, the devs are super disconnected! They dont know what we want! The Liars!"
-snip-
Youre not a scholar cause you can cast Miasma or Energy Drain. Youre a scholar cause you can summon a fairy and use fairy + healing skills to restore allies. Thats your class identity - having a fairy and doing things with the fairy. Not set the fairy to auto heal while you spam away a small dps rotation that stems predominately from ARC (yes I know this is an oversimplification.)
-snip-
No matter what anyone says, youre still a scholar, you still have your fairy, and you still do healing. These are what define your class, not that you had a few DPS spells from your base class.

Thank you for articulating my thoughts perfectly, I wish I could hang this up on my wall!

[Siccoroa]

Also something that got gutted just as bad as SCH now only one expac before. There honestly isn't even anything left for them to gut without making the job complete garbage.

off the top of my head WHM lost aero 1, the potency on fluid aura, and cleric stance going from hw to sb. I wouldn't call losing a mobility tool, an ogcd, and a busy work button being gutted.

(Emphasis mine) Can't think of too many AST who would agree to this. Their class mechanic got dumbed down. It's essentially a coin flip now. Every card is either Melee or Ranged.

Its essentially a coin flip now. You either draw a balance/spear/arrow all of which do the same thing, or you draw a bole/ewer/spire all of which get fed to royal road. To me it sounds much more interesting to have a guranteed card to play every 30 seconds instead of 1 card per minute at best.

[Reiryuu]

off the top of my head WHM lost aero 1, the potency on fluid aura, and cleric stance going from hw to sb. I wouldn't call losing a mobility tool, an ogcd, and a busy work button being gutted.

White mage lost:
- Protect (3.0): Moved from WHM only to role action.
- ProShell- Gave Protect increased Magic Resistance (worked into protect when it moved to role actions)
- Graniteskin Trait: strengthened stoneskin. (3.0)
- Fluid Aura potency
- Stoneskin and Stoneskin II (4.0) replaced with Divine Benison a weaker, cooldown, instant cast, single-target only ability at level 66. 34 levels higher than we got it in 2.0
- Divine Seal (4.0) moved to role actions and renamed Largesse.
- Aero III (5.0)
- Fluid Aura knockback (wtf am I supposed to do with a point blank bind?! Did they give it a range? I doubt it...) (5.0)
- Repose is being moved to role actions. Not that repose has been very useful in 50+ content. (5.0)

That's all I remember off the top of my head.

[fantasticm]

off the top of my head WHM lost aero 1, the potency on fluid aura, and cleric stance going from hw to sb. I wouldn't call losing a mobility tool, an ogcd, and a busy work button being gutted.

Nah bro, they lost a massive amount of personal skills to the cross role system or just out and out deleted. WHM does not have enough left to be truly gutted again.

The only way I think they could do that now is if they deleted Cure 2/Medica with the intention of the Afflatus skills replacing them (without changing the level requirements, of course). Actually, I can see this happening now. It would be in line with how SE adjusts WHM each expansion.

[Siccoroa]

Nah bro, they lost a massive amount of personal skills to the cross role system or just out and out deleted. WHM does not have enough left to be truly gutted again.

The only way I think they could do that now is if they deleted Cure 2/Medica with the intention of the Afflatus skills replacing them (without changing the level requirements, of course). Actually, I can see this happening now. It would be in line with how SE adjusts WHM each expansion.

If you still have access to the skills can you really say its been gutted?