Please continue bringing up AST and SCH issues.

[Ceasaria]

From another thread :

Honestly I preferred it when none of the healers had a full healing kit. SCH has powerful shields but weak heals. WHM had powerful heals but no mitigation. Either could complete 4 man content but you needed one of each for serious 8 man content. The introduction of AST made this more complicated, since healing was previously designed to require two roles. So AST has the sects. At the same time SCH got a lot more direct healing power (hello Indom) and so became more capable of being filling either/both roles. WHM was still stuck in its rut. Adding a 4th healer could help them get back into a better balance with WHM and AST (without nocturnal) as the big heal-y/Regen healers and SCH (with a bunch of their big heals reworked into mitigation) and (new healer) as the mitigators. You could further divide by having WHM and SCH be the personal dps healers and AST and (new healer) be the buff healers. You could then differentiate again by having WHM and (new class) as the simpler offensive skill healers and SCH (with old dps abilities restored and chain strategem replaced with a personal buff) and AST (with old cards restored) as the more complex offensive options healers. The new healer could even use the new AST cards with a reskin as their buff mechanic.

This vision is what SE should choose if they want to have 4 different and interesting healers who are fun to play.
We need differenciation, and for that each healer need to have strenghts and weaknesses.
Pure healers strengths would be raw heals and HoT while Shield healers strenghts would be shields and mitigation. That's mean their weakness is the strenght of the other.
For example, WHM is still quite weak for shield/mitigation with only one mono shield (every 30 sec) and one 10% mitigation ability (every 120 sec) for the party.
SCH should have several abilities tied to Pure being just removed or nerf to make him weak in this Pure category.

Additionnaly, each healer would have different strenghts and weaknesses in their category.

Pure Healers :
WHM strenghts : Raw heals and damages, mana management.
WHM weaknesses : Mobility, no buffs

AST strenghts : HoT, support abilities (various buffs + duration extended), mobility
AST weaknesses : Mana management, RNG cards system (previous)

Shield Healers :
SCH strenghts : DoT, Shields, some assist healing+buffs
SCH weaknesses : Difficult to find because we had a combination of pet, aetherflow abilities, mobility and mana to manage together which weren't quite evident.

4th healer strenghts : SoT (Shield over Time), damage buffer, mobility (teleportation type for self and allies), and some speed GCD / haste status.
4th healer weaknesses : Very few mitigations, some slow GCD and slow/heavy status consequence due to some abilities.

It looks like a Time Mage, maybe.


It can be totally balanced and will be easier. Why ?
Because already we set up the fundation with 2 healers categories which should work in duo : "The strenght of one is the weakness of the other."
We begin by balance Pure and Shield as stated above.
It's easy, imagine you create a Pure healer like Chemist, you know already it will have maybe one shield or not, and maybe one mitigation or not, for example. You do this, and you have already balance him with the Shield healers.
Then after we have just to balance healers from Pure category, and healers from Shield category.
Having to balance 2 healers together, 2 times, it shouldn't be too difficult nor too long.
Of course, each should be unique and bring something (or more) than the others have not to create a good identity.

Considering the different contents in this game, the duo Pure/Shield would me mandatory for Savage and Ultimate fights (and maybe some EX trials like Thordan, Shinryu, etc.)