Every problem with the current iteration of healers.

[DawnSolaria]

Lodi summed it up pretty well.

Too much scripted damage output, which leads to:
Not enough to heal. And a
Simple damage rotation which doesn't make up for it.

Which unless they change the 2.5 gcd it will be hard to implement consecutive spike aoe damage. I was thinking something along the lines of more mechanic that deals consistent aoe damage to the raid, ones that will oom healer unless they use all their skills properly. I do believe healers heal skills are generally decently designed, so if they refuse to improve dps rotation because they don't want healer to do 2 roles at once, then at least make healong harder/more interesting

[Allooutrick]

Healing as a white mage is too easy. The only reason I can find to use my lilies is get the blood lily filled and use afflatus misery. There's no other reason. I can completely ignore my lilies, use mp based heals exclusively, follow up with lucid dreaming, and never run short. Also, Holy feels obnoxious to spam but it's so useful. Gotta be obnoxious to be useful in large pulls.

[Sabrenn]

AST needs another mp regeneration tool, if it has to res, it's in a pickle compared to the other two healers who have 3 tools to regen mana vs AST who only has 2.

There's too much time being spent in the party list giving out cards compared to how much they give to people. Also, if you mistime it you lose uptime and it feels meh, it's a very short window considering how many times a fight you have to do it. I think this is due to AST having short cast times, which are great, but with how many cards we give out now compared to one aoe card every now and then feels a bit clunky. I'd rather get fewer cards to give out that are more powerful instead of how many cards we keep throwing around constantly.

With the buff to "wrong card" distribution, it feels less worth it to hand in the correct card, so my point above is not as bad because you can just keep throwing your cards to the same 1/2 people but it shouldn't be like that. It should feel rewarding to give the right card to the right person. There's not much difference right now.

I do like the new celestial opposition, having access to instant aoe regen/shield is very cool and much needed.
Same goes for celestial intersection, very cool to have access to the opposite sect tool on ogcd.
i also really like the charge on essential dignity, very useful to have.

I don't understand why Neutral sect doesn't affect celestial opposition nor intersection. They're both aspected abilities and should receive the buff. WHM is able to buff all it's ogcd, why not ast? it's unfair in a ast/sch combo vs whm/sch. Sch can only do shields so they don't really have this issue because regardless of who they're paired with they will shield, but a diurnal ast cannot bring this buff to the party.

Which brings me to my next point, the collective unconscious bubble is too weak. If we're immobile, it doesn't regen/shield enough to last through a boss burst aoe phase, which makes it pointless to use in that way. So we all use it to flash the regen 15s, and 5sec shield. Why does the shield only last 5sec and not 15 like the regen? At least 10sec? Or, give it more potency while immobile. Right now there's no reason to stay immobile so it's kinda weird in my opinion.
What would be cool (in my opinion) would be to add a card/divination buff while people are in the bubble while ast is immobile to make up for the lost dps from being immobile. Or just make the shields stronger like they are for every other npc that uses the shield in the msq..........

(continued)

[Sabrenn]

Horoscope feels too short a window to activate and too long a window to execute in total, here's why I think so:
If you're going to use a gcd aoe heal, you might as well use neutral sect right? so you end up having to do something like this:
horoscope > malefic > neutral sect > aspected helios > horoscope.

Most likely, you either miss a card throw opportunity or cut it very short on the initial horoscope window because you only have about 3sec left before the aspected aoe so within all that combo you can't throw out any cards at all. I seriously feel like the time window of this combo "rotation" should have a longer timer to allow at least one card to be given to a party member.

What else... The new tome weapon looks very cool. I hope we see more card colouring options in the future.

[Rivxkobe]

Collective Unconscious needs buffs.

It just does. The amount of healing and damage reduction for being unable to move or cast do not pan out. Outside of big party hits, it should never be used because it isn't worth the time. Something better most likely could have been used instead.

Say it with me: It's hot garbage.

[Elladie]

I think it's fair to say that many of us here on the forums, myself included, are unhappy and upset over the current iteration of healers. I know there are several threads talking about healer issues already, but my goal is to put every single healer issue into one thread and not have them split onto separate threads.

A couple of things that I do ask though:
Please be specific, don't just say something along the lines of "healers are boring now and I don't like them", not saying I disagree with such a statement, but it doesn't tell me anything, tell me why you don't like healers

Second point: please do not use this thread as a means of debates with others, I believe there are plenty of threads where people on both sides have argued with each other. I'm asking you here to talk to me, and only to me.

Last point: if you have any positives, I want to hear those as well. As much as I dont enjoy the current healers myself, I'd be remiss to say that they messed up everything, and I have positives to say myself. Tell me, and again only me, what some of these positives are, what draws you to your healing class? Again, do be specific, I want details.

I want every healers perspective, but as a scholar main myself, I'm most interested in what AST and especially WHM have to say, because I know what the issues with SCH are by heart, but I'm not as well versed in the other two.

If you want the game developers to pay attention, for the love of the Twelve just stop making new threads about it. It is seriously getting beyond entertaining - oh look a new healer complaint thread meme - and is accomplishing nothing but diluting your argument and pissing people off who might previously have sympathised a little.

I was prepared to be unhappy with my healers after reading all the gloomy threads here pre-Shadowbringers. But I actually have found them to be fine. My only complaint about SCH was the loss of Energy Drain, meaning that I was wasting aetherflow stacks by using OCD heals I didn't need; now I have Energy Drain back I'm happy. I'm also enjoying WHM; Afflatus Solace is lovely, I feel that I have enough oshit buttons to really try and push my DPS. All the people in my FC and my crossworld linkshell are similar engaged by the current healer interactions. Two friends who main AST are very happy they're not constantly fishing for balance cards and enjoying themselves.

I know you will dismiss this as anecdotal; I would respectfully disagree and say that most people in game do not have an issue with healers. Of course that isn't what you want to hear, and you are of course welcome to disregard it. But reading the numerous posts/threads you are currently making I can't help but feel that the only thing you'd be happy with is an echo chamber where all you hear is people murmuring in support of you.

I do not normally post often on the forums although I've been here since 1.x and mained SCH since ARR. But I am utterly tired of new threads every day on this subject. Please just stop, post everything in one thread, and then maybe the Devs might read it.

Personally I would much rather SE invested their time/money in sorting out housing for example however

[Crushnight]

Astrologian:

• Collective Unconsiousness needs a buff to be on par with sacred soil it is far too weak in potency, has way too long a cd and the fact it roots you in place while being a smaller size is just way too glaring with how bad it is.
• Nocturnal stance needs the 1k aspected benefic cost removed or it needs to bring more than that shield
• Neutral sect favors Diurnal far more, this shouldn't be a case if they want both sects worthwhile right now(despite the noct ast solo E4S) diurnal is just too much better than nocturnal with better mp to heal ratio
• Horoscope could use the automatically go off once timer runs out once procced clause.
• I like the old card system better but working with the new system, Divination still needs potency buff maybe up to 8% instead of 6% and i would prefer the major arcana to give the 4/8% increase and the minor give the 3/6% this would also help a bit with Sleeve Draw/Divination window as would reduce the amount of ogcds there.
• Give ast a secondary mp refresh could allow lightspeed to give 750 mp back or something

That is what i currently feel needs addressing that the devs could do something about without taking a second hammer to it. What i like about current AST is it kept some aspects of planning with Earthly star and Horoscope, the aesthetic of the job is still there just wish lore wasn't a mess too.

Scholar:

• Feel it needs more of it's decision making tools back like with sacred soil/shadowflare, players decide on situation what is best heals or damage
• Give seraph a dps ability even if shares a cd with consolidation, this gives seraph more oomph and sets it apart from the more basic Eos/Selene
• Fix the ghosting issues with regards to the fairies if i tell them to do it they should do it immediately no hesitation or embracing(a smn thing too)

Not as much for SCH but the 1st point can cover a lot more ground this was what interested me most about sch they're very kit was telling them do you heal or dps at this moment and i loved that. The best thing about sch right now its healing kit is great interacts well with itself with recitation to force crits/burst aoe heal, deployment for spread that good adlo but it's biggest flaw was apparant the moment we saw the media builds it is a far cry from as entertaining as its past iterations.

White Mage:

• Give it a utility ability already tie it to the lily system could even make it cost 2 lillies but allow it to briefly buff 1 party member for 15s
• Give it a non heal lily expender, the above is an example with giving a buff out but could be a weak attack just something in case there is no healing needed (like Enrage casts etc)
• Give fluid aura its damage back, why this doesn't have it while being continuingly gutted over the years is just baffling

Whm is alright right now certainly the best healer but it still feels like the same old whm that i have known and that is it is the safe healer the easiest one to pick up but for me also the easiest to put down again which is sad but that is my personal bias due to being sch for ARR and ast for HW-SB.

Conclusion:
All 3 healers need work Whm is the best but that was not due to bringing it up but by bringing ast and sch down from their previous incarnations. The fact they decided to give all 3 healers the ast dps rotation while making the systems for each job less engaging, even lilies are technically simpler than SB but SB lilies were fundamentally flawed from the beginning is just , balance is certainly closer atm but the fun factor is currently drunk somewhere and i'd like it to come home again soon.

[Semirhage]

I know my problems with WHM are just as much historical as they are mechanical I haven't played the other two anywhere near the amount of time I've invested in WHM, so I'll stay away from commenting on their issues.

1) Every expansion the changes to WHM have been hacking and chopping away at the kit. Players of the other two healers definitely can relate, but personally it's been extra baffling with WHM. The claims that "we need to cut back every expansion because hotbars are full". Uhhhh, WHM has one of the smallest kits in the entire game, noticeably fewer abilities than the other two. Those hotbars aren't anywhere close to full. Plus, the skills they've cut/moved into role actions over the years: Divine Seal. Shroud. Repose. Protect. Stoneskin. Cleric Stance. They've had various reasons for each, but notice a pattern there? They're largely abilities that allow WHM to do things other than Cure and Stone spam. They're kit depth, even if that depth is minor. I've advocated making WHM deeper for years, instead things other than spam heals and spam damage get the axe.


2) Big numbers are currently the only thing WHM has going for it. People have said it a lot the last month because it's true. Lilies are Crap Aetherflow. They come in more slowly, you can spend them on fewer, less varied abilities, and their payoff is, while cool, mostly a payback for the time you spent using the system rather than a solid gain at the end. Look behind the bigger damage numbers and WHM is currently a crappy SCH with a passive shallower version of Aetherflow, no fairy, none of the AOE shielding, no enemy debuffs other than Holy's stun, no haste or damage or crit or mana cost or movement speed or drop rate or levitation or so much as a flipping sound volume increase buff for anyone. Again, not a dig at Scholar, but an illustration of just how utterly barebones WHM's kit is. A raid buff would be a start, there is just so much functionality outside ME CURE and ME DAMAGE that WHM could do, so many directions to take, and the fact that the job design team has taken this already inflexible healbot of a class and hasn't thought of anything for it to do outside of "direct healing and damage" for six years is incredible. Even more incredibly, they looked at it and thought "Hmm, you know what the problem here is? Their damage rotation is more than one button, and therefore too complicated. GROG SMASH".

Please just stop, post everything in one thread, and then maybe the Devs might read it.

Like we did last expansion with that giant consolidated feedback thread on how stupid lilies were and nothing was done about them anyway?

[Billythepancake]

So I know I said to try to keep replies out, and I'm being a bit of a hypocrite, but I'm just using this to clarify more than anything. The point of this thread is not to be an echo chamber nor is it really meant to get the devs attention. I would love If it somehow did, but I know its unrealistic. The point of the thread was to do exactly what you said "put it all on one thread" and for me, not the devs, me, to better understand the issues with healers, because *I* want to know all of their issues. I also invited positive thinking, and for those that do enjoy the classes to tell me why as well, so if I wanted nothing but to spout healers are bad, I'm doing a piss poor job at it, because I do think there are positives here, and I want to hear those as well. I had also hoped to do exactly as you had mentioned "keep it all to 1 thread" because I know there's a 57 page AST thread, but i cant garner a lot from that because that is a lot of reading to do, and a lot of it is debating, which is why I specifically asked for not that, just opinions directed towards me.

Anyhows thanks for all the replies so far everyone. I do appreciate it, and I would appreciate even more.

[Ubbernaut]

More and more I'm starting to suspect the ridiculously potencies of oGCD abilities is the big issue with healers in their current iteration.

When in between casts we top off everyone, the moment we can cast there's little else to cast BUT damage spells. Which leads to the issue that generally we have 3 buttons to our whole class... Single target, dot, aoe.

I would absolutely abhor to see them removed, as they do make healing entertaining, but with their sheer power, abundance and availability right now its grown into a massive issue.