Healer boycott in 5.0

[ShinShimon]

I really like AST right now. It's one of my favorite classes.

I won't be playing AST in ShB. It has none of the soul of the class I fell in love with. I'll be tempted to, just so that my anima weapon doesn't go to waste... but I don't know if SE will truly realize how pissed many of us are if drastic action isn't taken.

What kind of drastic action? KEEP YOUR HEALER OUT OF GROUP CONTENT IN 5.0. Run group content with something else. Eat the queues if you only have DPS, or perhaps try out GNB - tanking is easier than you think, GNB starts at lvl 60, and it even has a party healing ability!

I'll forgive WHM for breaking the picket, but SCH and especially AST have been massacred. If our jobs just vanish from the duty finder, and people start seeing "Adventurer in Need: Healer" more often than "AiN: Tank", it will have greater force than 100000 futile forum posts.

[tinythinker]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...e-various-jobs

[Vivian_Vex]

This is exactly the kind of stuff I am talking about. Nothing but complaining and overreacting like the game is ruined for healers.

No one is going to follow you into your little boycott.

[ShinShimon]

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.

[ShinShimon]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...e-various-jobs

Well, I didn't know he was advocating a boycott. Mods are free to merge this thread into his, although I think it's important to have the constructive curative measure put visibly in the thread title.

[Naoki34]

This is exactly the kind of stuff I am talking about. Nothing but complaining and overreacting like the game is ruined for healers.

No one is going to follow you into your little boycott.

He complains, but it will be found in 5.0
It's a lot of energy for nothing.

[tinythinker]

He complains, but it will be found in 5.0
It's a lot of energy for nothing.

That describes most of the human condition, as recently demonstrated by the days and days of people going on and on about the last season/episode of Game of Thrones.

Some players have been waiting years to see particular changes or improvements, so naturally many will be disappointed with today's info dump. Venting is to be expected. Telling people who just learned news they don't like not to complain could also be considered energy for nothing as opposed to waiting for the initial steam to blow off, but we all do what we do, even silly me

[Kayokane]

I will continue to be WHM is 5.0, the changes to WHM are too insignificant for me to swap out after 8 years of healing. I am sorry that AST and SCH suffered wide sweeping and, in all honesty, unnecessary nerfs for the sake of balance what was already perfectly fine to begin with. Have a nice day, I hope you get the changes you wish for.

[Brandedblade]

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.

[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.