How could you do this to AST?

[KDSilver]

In fact, considering they brought up that "player skill" bullshit again, history has made me more inclined to believe that's what's happening.

Did they ? I missed it

[Duskane]

I am SO UPSET about this change that we know NOTHING about!
Fix it NOW!

this tbh at least you could wait till we get knowledge of all our 80+ skills like in media tour

[RyuDragnier]

While I acknowledge that there's a lot up in the air right now, this is something that we very much do not know, as they have yet to really acknowledge that there are even problems to begin with.

Well AST's base healing kit (ie Sects) have been a balancing problem from its release, and now they're finally dealing with it, so they DID acknowledge a problem and are working to fix it.

[MintnHoney]

Well AST's base healing kit (ie Sects) have been a balancing problem from its release, and now they're finally dealing with it, so they DID acknowledge a problem and are working to fix it.

They didn't even say it was a problem, so, no, they're not acknowledging it was an issue. What they did say, was that they're going to "retool" AST into "more" of a "Pure Healer" in light of their push for the division of Pure vs Shield healing, so they're saying they're doing this as part of an exciting feature.

Furthermore, what that actually means for either Diurnal or Nocturnal Sect, as actions and as stances, is entirely up in the air still, so they may end up making something good, or they could end up making even more problems than they started with, not even thinking about what else of the job lore/fantasy they'll toss into the fire in the process.
I don't have any hopes for anything remotely grand to come out of this, so I'm waiting to be pleasantly surprised in this case, or not surprised, and therefore, not disappointed if their plans don't go so well. Again.

Did they ? I missed it

It was part of the Game Watch interview, where they asked a bit about the healer role split. There's a discord that provides great translations for these events and interviews, so I would recommend looking them up. You'll get a lot of news that way, too.
Here's a link to the interview.

[HyoMinPark]

They didn't even say it was a problem, so, no, they're not acknowledging it was an issue. What they did say, was that they're going to "retool" AST into "more" of a "Pure Healer" in light of their push for the division of Pure vs Shield healing, so they're saying they're doing this as part of an exciting feature.

They don’t have to say that Sects are a problem. Anyone that goes back to look at all the adjustments and tunings AST has had to undergo in the last six years knows how much of a problem balancing the job has been. It has either been too strong (most of its lifespan has been it blatantly overshadowing WHM in healing, damage, or utility aspects) or horrible to the point of being unplayable (3.0 release, early ShB when its healing was super bad). A lot of AST’s balancing issues comes from the hybrid nature while some used to come from the card system—and the fact that WHM had no answer to how strong it was. They can’t make either sect “too good” without threatening the other healer that shares the same healing type. Usually, it’s WHM that is threatened. We’ve seen this time and time again in every expansion since AST was introduced. Early SB AST actually threatened SCH until they buffed the latter prior to Deltascape’s release. They also cannot make Diurnal and Nocturnal equally as good. One has always been better than the other, and it has always been Diurnal. Nocturnal has been adjusted so many times I’ve honestly lost count. All to try and make it more appealing. And it’s failed with the general healer population at large. I enjoy Noct, but I know Diurnal is just straight up better.

Personally, I think both Sects will be removed, with AST just inherently taking on the Diurnal qualities of most of its actions. They will likely leave Neutral Sect as it is, CU, and likely CI as a baby Divine Benison. But I don’t expect them to make the Sects into cooldowns or something. More than likely, they will be axed like most stances have been axed.

[MintnHoney]

They don’t have to say that Sects are a problem. Anyone that goes back to look at all the adjustments and tunings AST has had to undergo in the last six years knows how much of a problem balancing the job has been. It has either been too strong (most of its lifespan has been it blatantly overshadowing WHM in healing, damage, or utility aspects) or horrible to the point of being unplayable (3.0 release, early ShB when its healing was super bad). A lot of AST’s balancing issues comes from the hybrid nature while some used to come from the card system—and the fact that WHM had no answer to how strong it was. They can’t make either sect “too good” without threatening the other healer that shares the same healing type. Usually, it’s WHM that is threatened. We’ve seen this time and time again in every expansion since AST was introduced. Early SB AST actually threatened SCH until they buffed the latter prior to Deltascape’s release. They also cannot make Diurnal and Nocturnal equally as good. One has always been better than the other, and it has always been Diurnal. Nocturnal has been adjusted so many times I’ve honestly lost count. All to try and make it more appealing. And it’s failed with the general healer population at large. I enjoy Noct, but I know Diurnal is just straight up better.

Personally, I think both Sects will be removed, with AST just inherently taking on the Diurnal qualities of most of its actions. They will likely leave Neutral Sect as it is, CU, and likely CI as a baby Divine Benison. But I don’t expect them to make the Sects into cooldowns or something. More than likely, they will be axed like most stances have been axed.

Considering we had to wait until a specific sound-related error happened during a livestream for Yoshi-P (and/or the Dev team) to acknowledge that it was an actual error, and only then finally started looking into a fix for it (and finally fixed it), among various other examples I'm sure you and I and others could possibly bring up, I do think it's necessary for them to acknowledge issues (not to mention, it at least gives us the peace of mind to know that they really are aware; unlike that statement Yoshi-P made at the reveal of Dancer, where he stated he was completely unaware that people wanted another healer, or the lack of comments about healer's malcontent over this entire expansion). To me, refusing to acknowledge an issue presents an inherently higher chance that the issue won't get fixed, because it implies that there is no issue at all.

The problem with implications is that they can go in any direction, and although you choose to view it that way, others can choose to view it as a proud company that doesn't want to say that something is an issue, or I can even think that they don't even believe it was an issue in the first place, since you can heal as a NOCT AST successfully in content (and that's all they care about, in the end). He didn't acknowledge it as an issue during this reveal, live letter, or interview, or with recent interviews, etc.; but, I also concede that I may just be forgetting where and when he has presented the job as an actual issue in the past (it's been a long road, so he certainly might have said something specific to it), so there's that, if it pleases you.

Which brings us to what might come our way with the AST update.
There's a chance that they'll remove Diurnal Sect, making the regen effects a permanent effect on the spells and abilities that it normally affects, and either removing Nocturnal Sect with it or turning Diurnal Sect into an ability which converts the Regen Effect into a momentary Barrier effect for either x amount of spell casts or for a time period (knowing their track record, just removing Nocturnal outright seems likely, for the same reasons that you think). Should both sects be removed as actions, then Neutral Sect becomes... weirdly defunct, since there's no other sects to be neutral from, so I would hope that they'd at least change the name if they even leave that in.
But it really depends on what they want to do to further reinforce this split. So, again, we're at their mercy and wait for them to reveal whatever else they've planned for us.

[ty_taurus]

While I acknowledge that there's a lot up in the air right now, this is something that we very much do not know, as they have yet to really acknowledge that there are even problems to begin with.
For all we know, they don't think there's an issue at all. In fact, considering they brought up that "player skill" bullshit again, history has made me more inclined to believe that's what's happening.

I think it's easy to infer that they are aware of the issues because not only is this a hot topic for healer players in all regions, but the ratio of players that have been playing healer in Shadowbringers is lower too. The question isn't weather or not they're aware of the things that at least the japanese community talks about, but rather whether or not they they believe we know what we're talking about. If the situation doesn't improve, it's not because they don't know there's an issue, it's because they don't really care about that issue, or aren't interested in taking the measures we view as necessary to fix the healers. In other words, any avoidance of the issue is most likely intentional and not accidental.

[HyoMinPark]

Considering we had to wait until a specific sound-related error happened during a livestream for Yoshi-P (and/or the Dev team) to acknowledge that it was an actual error, and only then finally started looking into a fix for it (and finally fixed it), among various other examples I'm sure you and I and others could possibly bring up, I do think it's necessary for them to acknowledge issues (not to mention, it at least gives us the peace of mind to know that they really are aware; unlike that statement Yoshi-P made at the reveal of Dancer, where he stated he was completely unaware that people wanted another healer, or the lack of comments about healer's malcontent over this entire expansion). To me, refusing to acknowledge an issue presents an inherently higher chance that the issue won't get fixed, because it implies that there is no issue at all.

Just snipping this for length—

The refusal to acknowledge issues doesn’t mean that said issues don’t exist. The developers are very much aware about the issues surrounding healers this expansion, if for no other reason than people have been incredibly vocal about said issues sine ShB released. Just because they don’t directly acknowledge things as a “problem” doesn’t mean that they aren’t aware of them. Take SB WHM and their lilies: they were aware before 4.0 even released that the lilies were flawed—healer mains and theorycrafters that had analyzed the pre-expansion media tour information kept warning them that the Lily system would be defunct. Their “solution” was “Just wait and see”. 4.0 drops—and the Lilies are a problem as predicted. And they continued to be a problem for the entire expansion. The developers never directly acknowledged the problem...but come 5.0 media tour and, well, the lilies were overhauled.

While they have acknowledged other issues in the past—SAM and NIN issues this expansion, for example—they have also not acknowledged other things that may be problematic, and instead fixed them anyways without prior warning. Most job changes are addressed with “we’re adjusting X jobs next patch” but they rarely ever tell you what is being adjusted (outside of “we’re buffing potencies” usually—SAM and NIN were a rare example where they went in-depth a bit more about their plans, but it’s fairly standard for SE to remain hush hush on stuff). Usually they add in a footnote-esque comment after the fact of “oh yeah, we heard the feedback on this so we fixed it”. But again: silence doesn’t mean they don’t know. They’ve stayed silent about healers this entire expansion, but there’s no way they aren’t aware of the issues and dissatisfactions present with them. Every region has complaints.

AST complaints have gone on for years. And I’ve seen a lot of them focus on the Sects and how imbalanced they are (when the complaints aren’t about AST’s utility). It’s very possible the developers have kept up with that feedback, and despite attempting to fix the imbalance for 6 years, they’ve decided to just axe the hybrid build and give AST the regen-healer treatment since its the standard.

[MintnHoney]

I think it's easy to infer that they are aware of the issues because not only is this a hot topic for healer players in all regions, but the ratio of players that have been playing healer in Shadowbringers is lower too. The question isn't weather or not they're aware of the things that at least the japanese community talks about, but rather whether or not they they believe we know what we're talking about. If the situation doesn't improve, it's not because they don't know there's an issue, it's because they don't really care about that issue, or aren't interested in taking the measures we view as necessary to fix the healers. In other words, any avoidance of the issue is most likely intentional and not accidental.

Normally I would agree with you; however, Yoshi-P has, at one point in the expansion, explained that they would not be looking at "certain feedback" anymore because it could hurt their feelings (or so was the gist of the statement), again, among many other statements that speaks to, at best, willful ignorance to what we discuss or profess as issues.
Frankly, the sky's the limit with what's happening between the players and the dev team; they could be in total ignorance, willful or otherwise, or they could be laughing their asses off at us for caring at all, or they really could be taking careful stock of every little character we type and trying their damnedest to find a solution to all of the problems that would please the most people (godspeed).
But actions speak volumes, as are the things one chooses to say or not say when there was little to be said and all ears are listening. I hope you're right, in that they're taking in all the feedback and actually are trying to make the situation improve in their own quirky way, but I'm not currently of the mind to give them the benefit of the doubt at this point.

[KDSilver]

Normally I would agree with you; however, Yoshi-P has, at one point in the expansion, explained that they would not be looking at "certain feedback" anymore because it could hurt their feelings (or so was the gist of the statement), again, among many other statements that speaks to, at best, willful ignorance to what we discuss or profess as issues.

What feedback ?
Those who say that there's a gap between what healer do and what dev want us to do despite their encounter design ?

What I'd be interested to know is, what feedback does Yoshi-P get that make him people even in 2021 that SCH does not heal.
The Aetherflow system with heal vs energy drain exists for 6 now and SCH as always been known for its awesome healing toolkit through AF.
So why is there still this disconnect where they want to remove energy drain saying SCH doesn't heal?
I mean... if the producer himself keep saying this after all these years, are there a lot of data proving that SCH player don't care and sprend all their ressources in DPS?
Does it takes into account their AST co-healer and awesome healing kit as well ? Making SCH contribution less necessary ?

So many unknown... i'd like to understand