A summary of healer issues

[ASkellington]

snip

For AST/WHM I don't agree with you here simply because they already feel similar at 50 and below and I'd rather they not any more.

Benefic and Cure 1 can still be upgraded to their 2s if we want to keep them.

I'd argue removing Benefic and keeping A. Bene to enforce AST as a regen healer. If that seems too difficult, then keep Bene 2 but increase its MP cost.

Medica, Medica 2 is... I don't want to say remove Medica 2 because AST is regen healer. We'll say that.

For AST though, Helios can be removed in favor of A. Helios.

If we decided to introduce Noct Sect back into AST it would be interesting to play with the stance dance in combat where kinda like SGE now, you would shield to "heal" or at least buffer but would use your regens to actually increase health.

But yeah, you aren't wrong. There's plenty you can remove on the healers to make way for a few dps or support.

ASTRODYNE SAYS "HI" SE!

[ForsakenRoe]

Medica, Medica 2 is... I don't want to say remove Medica 2 because AST is regen healer. We'll say that.

Ah, see my thinking is that AST could move over to being more a 'delayed effects healer' in the vein of Star, Horoscope, Exaltation, rather than regens. Regen is a staple of White Magic from previous games, and it makes sense for there to be an AOE version, hence I'd keep Medica2 for that reason. Medica2 already is equal strength to Medica1 after just one tick though, hence why I want 'em combined. I'd rather we see HOTs as a focus on a 5th healer, with proper kit dedicated to it, rather than keeping it on AST, especially since they removed the time manipulation stuff from AST and refuse to give it back. Instead, I'd make AST all about 'predicting the future', with it's cards, its delayed heals and new 'delayed damage skills', it's a fortune telling class after all. Make a new healer class dedicated to HOTs and DOTs, and manipulation of them. Extend them, Quicken them to instant detonate in raidbuffs, Rewind them to refresh duration, this is sounding almost like... a mage that works with Time Magics. A Mage of Time if you will

Or we could keep AST as the regen healer, but then IDK what SE would come up with for a 5th healer, if they even add one. Considering how copypaste SCH/SGE seem to be already, it's debatable if they even added a 4th...

Also you say WHM/AST feel similar below 50 and I'd argue that yes, true, but that's by design. This is because A: pre-50 some classes dont even have their job gauges (cough WHM, DRG) so I'm not sure 'homogenisation bad!' is a consideration at such low levels. I look at it more as 'these are the pure healers, they need these base tools because they're both pure healers, so they are here early so people get used to them being there'. I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about how the tanks get their 30%s at 38, or their invulns at 50. Nor have I run across anyone saying 'I love how WAR breaks the homogenisation at low levels, by having it's invuln at 42!' But also, B: to me at those levels, WHM feels like 'Wish.com AST'. WHM doesn't have Medica2 until 50, AST gets it at 42. WHM doesn't have any instantcast OGCDs to panic with, AST has Essential Dignity. WHM has zero options for mobility outside of 'lmao stop casting', AST has Lightspeed. WHM doesn't get it's job gauge til 52, AST starts playing cards at 30, starts being able to influence the draws (lore translation: bend fate to their will) at 40, and use 'epic cool raidbuff' Divination at 50. The only thing WHM has going for it at these levels is Holy's stun, and that only works for the first 3 GCDs. After that, some would argue AST actually has the advantage again, because Gravity doesn't force you to stand in the middle of every add's poop puddles!

Disagreement aside though, I also dream of the day Astrodyne stops saying 'Hi' and finally just says 'Bye', bloody waste of a hotbar slot

When I unlocked SGE to try it out, I just did /hotbar copy SCH 1 SGE 1 etc and replaced <exact same ability> with <exact same ability>. Muscle memory shifted about 10% maximum.

Oh, I found out the names of the skills somewhere (think it was via a YT vid from MrHappy or someone about the skills and their effects), and wrote 3 macros, one for each hotbar, that would set the slot to X skill, and I wrote them with my SCH layouts in mind. For example, my Whispering Dawn bind is hotbar 2, slot 6, so I did /hotbar set "Physis" 2 6, etc for the rest. The only thing that I had to do manually was place Rhizomata, because in the vid I saw, it was spelled 'Rizomata' and so the macro couldn't find the skill lmao

[ASkellington]

Ah, see my thinking is that AST could move over to being more a 'delayed effects healer' in the vein of Star, Horoscope, Exaltation, rather than regens. Regen is a staple of White Magic from previous games, and it makes sense for there to be an AOE version, hence I'd keep Medica2 for that reason. Medica2 already is equal strength to Medica1 after just one tick though, hence why I want 'em combined. I'd rather we see HOTs as a focus on a 5th healer, with proper kit dedicated to it, rather than keeping it on AST, especially since they removed the time manipulation stuff from AST and refuse to give it back. Instead, I'd make AST all about 'predicting the future', with it's cards, its delayed heals and new 'delayed damage skills', it's a fortune telling class after all. Make a new healer class dedicated to HOTs and DOTs, and manipulation of them. Extend them, Quicken them to instant detonate in raidbuffs, Rewind them to refresh duration, this is sounding almost like... a mage that works with Time Magics. A Mage of Time if you will

AST is Time Mage is the issue though.

Delayed healing and regens to me = that. Macrocosmos especially since it seems to Rewind health. (the effect even looks like a clock) And they're called Heals over Time. Quite frankly you could remove the cards from AST and it would be Time Mage the Healer.

Also, I can't say it would sit well with many people who played AST who HAD Time Dilation for it to be removed and then given to a mage who technically could fill AST's role. Espeically since people want a Time mage with delayed damage. Uh... you could literally drop that into AST with 0 problems since Earthly Star exists...

AST unfortunately is bloated with concepts from fortunetelling to time magic.

As it stands right now, without Noct Sect, you'll hear me double down on AST being regen/delayed healer based. It literally fits all of its heals outside of its base lv50 kit: CO - regen. CU - regen + mit. Horoscope - delayed heal. Macro - delayed heal. Exalt - delayed heal. Earthly Star - delayed heal.

AST is a manipulator of fate and arguably time. May as well keep it.

If we wanted to make room for a 5th healer (which considering SGE I don't think SE could even DO), make AST stance dancer between Di/Noct and have the final healer be a HoT based one I guess.