A summary of healer issues

[GrimGale]

In regards to button bloat, I honestly think we'll one day need a true culling of healing actions. I think people get a bit sensitive when it comes to the idea of removing things, but it might be a good time to start considering how to simplify healing tools. One of the reasons why healing is as easy as it is is because there are such powerful OGCD healing abilities, and many of them. In a lot of cases, that healing feels superfluous in most content.

Back during the 2.X era, WHM only had Cure, Cure II, Cure III, Medica, Medica II, Regen, and Bendiction. SCH only had Physick, Adloquium, Succor, Lustrate, Embrace, and Whispering Dawn (Eos only). Yet both were able to get through all the coils of Bahamut, which is still some of the most challenging content to date when synched. Maybe it's a good time to consider some serious fat trimming. I don't think we need to go back to that only, but maybe we need to think about what healing tools are most interesting and reevaluate how each healer heals. Like I'd argue AST should make Earthly Star the focal point of their healing and think of how to play with that concept more.

One of the things that made SCH interesting in comparison to WHM back then, was the fact that SCH had access to mitigation in the form of Virus, Eye for an Eye and Sacred Soil, tools only they had. Scholars didn't need to heal as much because they could reduce the incoming damage Tanks recieved by weakening the enemy strategically. That gave Scholar a distinct gameplay where they would focus on enemies more so than White Mages. They were the perfect Co-healer, complimenting WHM's extensive and potent healing kit with strong and unique utility. AST came and upset that balance and since then Healer design has been continuously been homogenized.

[ty_taurus]

One of the things that made SCH interesting in comparison to WHM back then, was the fact that SCH had access to mitigation in the form of Virus, Eye for an Eye and Sacred Soil, tools only they had. Scholars didn't need to heal as much because they could reduce the incoming damage Tanks recieved by weakening the enemy strategically. That gave Scholar a distinct gameplay where they would focus on enemies more so than White Mages. They were the perfect Co-healer, complimenting WHM's extensive and potent healing kit with strong and unique utility. AST came and upset that balance and since then Healer design has been continuously been homogenized.

This is true (though Sacred Soil was considered a trap in most situations since it was objectively the worst aetherflow action). I was just talking about the healing actions, but I would also fight for healers getting back their emphasis on damage mitigation and crowd control elements as that created a greater need to focus on other things than just healing and DPS.

[Maltothoris]

The problem with the utility and crowd control that it was very lopsided. Sch had soil (best for moves like gigaflare and stuff) whispering dawn, fey illumination (which was mantra in very way but much better), fey covenant ( not exactly a 20 percent damage reductions since it varied from role to role) selene's actions, supervirus over the normal virus, and E4E had a cd of 2 minutes. Astro had the cards (granted balance was still the most useful one and was leagues better in 3.4), disable and collective unconscious. White mage only had the untraited virus which only reduced str and dexterity so it really was only useful for adds and only half the bosses( but you still wanted the supervirus for their aoes), the untraited E4E so it had a cd of 3 minutes instead of 2, and the "quick" stoneskin which they wanted to use sparingly since its mp cost was slightly cheaper than aldo but since whm had the worst mp economy of the three, it didn't really help.

They probably really just wanted to stick to their guns about white mage being the "pure" healer and had the lily system haphazardly implemented (which they did not to improve with the exception of cure 1 from 50 to 100 percent and outright all but admitted its defeat when 4.2 came around and 4.5 as well.)

[Deceptus]

This is true (though Sacred Soil was considered a trap in most situations since it was objectively the worst aetherflow action). I was just talking about the healing actions, but I would also fight for healers getting back their emphasis on damage mitigation and crowd control elements as that created a greater need to focus on other things than just healing and DPS.

Sacred soil was a trap because Shadow Flare shared it's Cooldown. With the slow, it ended up doing similar damage reduction with the added benefit of doing damage as well.

As someone else pointed out as well: Sacred Soil cost an Aetherflow stack, Shadow Flare didn't.

[ty_taurus]

Sacred soil was a trap because Shadow Flare shared it's Cooldown. With the slow, it ended up doing similar damage reduction with the added benefit of doing damage as well.

The fact that it ate an Aetherflow also made it undesirable though. You got more mileage just healing with lustrate in most cases, or getting the damage and MP drain from Energy Drain.

[Semirhage]

I may be off-base, but I think the timeline went something like: Sacred Soil was bad because it was mutually exclusive with Shadowflare, which was better for damage and had the slow. Then Heavensward added Indom and almost completely relegated Sacred Soil to the trashcan because a pitiful 10% damage reduction for a short bit was basically always eclipsed by a big fat AOE heal that restored more than SS prevented, so even after they started rolling Shadowflare away from Scholar it still sucked. It's still only really good after it gets that ridiculous regen effect on it. Before that trait, Indom is just better.

[Recon1o6]

As promised I've saved the current status of healers. I still need to do scholar but whm and ast are done

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

[Deceptus]

As promised I've saved the current status of healers. I still need to do scholar but whm and ast are done

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Remember when you're doing Scholar:

Pet stated potency is not actual potency applied. There is a tax. It's something like 30-35% less than stated.

[Hazama999]

Healers... kinda feel like an afterthought, and that makes me sad.

[Mesarthim]

Healers... kinda feel like an afterthought, and that makes me sad.

Well if AST on 5.0 release was anything to go by, that's because to SE they are. But only time will tell what they did for the job changes.

I'd keep expectations low until actual results.