A summary of healer issues

[Deceptus]

But everyone hated the old AST card system, because of the DPS loss. That's why it was changed to only add damage.

Meta players at the tippy top of the charts hated the old AST card system. The majority of players were ambivalent to it. Fishing for Balance only really happened in savage or higher because that was the only point it was relevant.

And the problem is CBU3 decided to completely gut a job's identity for something less than 5% of the player base complained about.

[ForsakenRoe]

If we had known that we'd end up here, with this current form of AST, I think a lot less people would have been asking for 'oops all Balance'. I don't think it was even 'everyone', or even 'quite a lot of people' who were crying, I think it was an insanely small minority, who were so loud and so persistent about it, that because of the already established feverpitch of 'everyone MUST parse' of SB, the padding, the NIN DRG BRD MCH meta, all that, that people who have no clue why the 'meta players' say something, were parroting it too. How many times have you seen someone lock a MCH out of a raid this tier? Even though it's week seven million, and the MCH is BIS, there's bellends who lock it out of their PF because they heard 'MCH bad'. The people who were asking for all the cards to be damage because 'feels bad when you dont get balance' weren't AST players, they were 'FFLogs players'. And we've gone from 'waahhh my parse is scuffed because I didn't get Balance' to 'wahhh my parse is scuffed because I got Lady 7/8 times', so nothing's bloody changed on that front, you can still have your parse damaged by RNG.

At one point, I thought that having some cards offer 'not damage' needed to change. Now I see how bloody stupid I was. If I was able to go back to SB (and worked for SE) I'd cancel that change before SHB came out. And if any FFLogheads complained about how they had a god run but it got ruined because they missed one Balance, I'd use my hypothetical position at SE to say 'then go again until you get it'. People 'go again' because they didn't crit their Double Down, or Confiteors, or Misery, or Hyosho or Communio or etc etc. So 'go again I didn't get balance' is not special in any regard

Fishing for Balance only really happened in savage or higher because that was the only point it was relevant.

Imagine it

'AAAAA I didn't get balance, SE pls change all the cards to be the same damage'

OK, but what tough content are you doing that required the Balance to beat? What insanely tight DPS check were you up against?

'Ghimlyt Dark for my EX roulette'

[Renathras]

If we had known that we'd end up here, with this current form of AST, I think a lot less people would have been asking for 'oops all Balance'. I don't think it was even 'everyone', or even 'quite a lot of people' who were crying, I think it was an insanely small minority, who were so loud and so persistent about it,

This is probably true of complaints 95+% of the time related to anything in FFXIV, and probably 99+% of the bad changes the game has had.

[Szylver]

Meta players at the tippy top of the charts hated the old AST card system. The majority of players were ambivalent to it. Fishing for Balance only really happened in savage or higher because that was the only point it was relevant.

And the problem is CBU3 decided to completely gut a job's identity for something less than 5% of the player base complained about.

well then, they need to do something with the AST damage, if they bring old AST back. All jobs need to be efficient in Raids/Ultimates. There is no point in bringing back old AST if people kick you from the pt because of low damage...

[Semirhage]

well then, they need to do something with the AST damage, if they bring old AST back. All jobs need to be efficient in Raids/Ultimates. There is no point in bringing back old AST if people kick you from the pt because of low damage...

O_o uh. Complaints about consistency in Stormblood were one thing, but let's not pretend as if Stormblood AST, among the most solidly meta jobs this game has seen with its busted damage contribution, utility, and free healing triumvirate, was floundering for damage, barely scraping by and getting kicked from parties.

[MintnHoney]

well then, they need to do something with the AST damage, if they bring old AST back. All jobs need to be efficient in Raids/Ultimates. There is no point in bringing back old AST if people kick you from the pt because of low damage...

Actually, I'd say that current cards are kind of a big damage nerf from what AST had during Stormblood, if not about the same in terms of % contribution we're giving now due to consistency (though you'd never tell without parsing, with how meager the effects feel outside of significant burst phases).

[ForsakenRoe]

No no, he has a point. If we were to get oldcards back (and the stuff that made them work like Royal Road etc) then we'd have to also lose Divination. The 'aoe damage buff' would be returned to being entirely RNG reliant, so the damage swings would be kinda hefty, especially in this blasted 2min meta. Last time I looked at an AST log of mine, it was over 15% of my damage coming from cards and Divination. IDK what it was like back in SB, probably bloody horrendous, but we also didn't use rDPS as the default metric, so it's hard to say really.

Now, if we had the cards be 'set this card on someone' FaceDown YuGiOh style, and Divination did it's damage buff plus activating any 'set' cards(ie cards are still single target only), I can see that working with a bit of potency tuning. The main thing they'll aim for is reducing the 'damage swing', which, for a class that is meant to be designed around RNG, is always going to be annoying for them.

[ASkellington]

No no, he has a point. If we were to get oldcards back (and the stuff that made them work like Royal Road etc) then we'd have to also lose Divination. The 'aoe damage buff' would be returned to being entirely RNG reliant, so the damage swings would be kinda hefty, especially in this blasted 2min meta. Last time I looked at an AST log of mine, it was over 15% of my damage coming from cards and Divination. IDK what it was like back in SB, probably bloody horrendous, but we also didn't use rDPS as the default metric, so it's hard to say really.

Now, if we had the cards be 'set this card on someone' FaceDown YuGiOh style, and Divination did it's damage buff plus activating any 'set' cards(ie cards are still single target only), I can see that working with a bit of potency tuning. The main thing they'll aim for is reducing the 'damage swing', which, for a class that is meant to be designed around RNG, is always going to be annoying for them.

I mean... we could just keep Divination as RR-Balance and make Balance something else... What I can't tell you but it is a possibility.

Because... I would rather have that then bring back RR and start this all over again. Or just not bring back RR at all as interesting as it is. Unless you want to give it a different effect.

[Semirhage]

Random thought of the day:

Wouldn't it be funny if someone wrote a (redacted heretical mod word) that randomized heals? It'd be a pain in cutting edge content with the need for mitigation sure, and it would introduce some chaos into coordinated groups as you couldn't map specific timers to line up, but I'm thinking dungeons or random party finder groups would barely be affected at all.

Consolidate all of your heals into two buttons: random single-target heal and random AOE heal. Press one, and it'll select one of your currently-available heals in that category, GCD or otherwise. See how big the difference is in your Expert roulette experience. See if it makes clearing an EX trial an impossible, harrowing experience.

My hypothesis: apart from randomly GCD healing when you least expect it, if you're remotely skilled as a healer, you'll barely notice. This is what I think of when people act like these healing kits are remotely interesting or in any way a significant step up from the boring damage portion of the kits.

[Rilifane]

Random thought of the day:

Wouldn't it be funny if someone wrote a (redacted heretical mod word) that randomized heals? It'd be a pain in cutting edge content with the need for mitigation sure, and it would introduce some chaos into coordinated groups as you couldn't map specific timers to line up, but I'm thinking dungeons or random party finder groups would barely be affected at all.

Consolidate all of your heals into two buttons: random single-target heal and random AOE heal. Press one, and it'll select one of your currently-available heals in that category, GCD or otherwise. See how big the difference is in your Expert roulette experience. See if it makes clearing an EX trial an impossible, harrowing experience.

My hypothesis: apart from randomly GCD healing when you least expect it, if you're remotely skilled as a healer, you'll barely notice. This is what I think of when people act like these healing kits are remotely interesting or in any way a significant step up from the boring damage portion of the kits.

I want to see it happen.
And I have the same hypothesis... for some reason. Maybe because I barely notice which one of my copy&pasted ~600potency aoe heals I use since it doesn't make a difference.