Why is the healer class basically a one spell dps class?

[SweetPete]

Because when healers had many dps skills it created a very toxic player base. If you healed more then dps then you’d be kicked. If the group thought you didn’t contribute enough dps they would bash you and kick you. The toxicity was all to real. Then some healers just dps and didn’t heal much. There was so much mess going on.

New players were horrified to play healers because the veterans created this healer dps toxic community.

Since healer dps changes. The community isn’t very toxic anymore. People don’t care to jump down a healers throat for dps anymore.

[Duskane]

Because when healers had many dps skills it created a very toxic player base. If you healed more then dps then you’d be kicked. If the group thought you didn’t contribute enough dps they would bash you and kick you. The toxicity was all to real. Then some healers just dps and didn’t heal much. There was so much mess going on.

New players were horrified to play healers because the veterans created this healer dps toxic community.

Since healer dps changes. The community isn’t very toxic anymore. People don’t care to jump down a healers throat for dps anymore.

nothing you've said here is correct

[NYCLouisGamer]

nothing you've said here is correct

Clearly, SweetPete is quite correct as SE responded to the situation that SweetPete illustrated. SE will absolutely move towards reducing toxicity in order to increase accessibility. SE is hostile towards elitism to the point where they are okay with dismantling fun in the process.

See: healer gameplay changes over time & persistent ban on DPS addons.

Reality agrees with SweetPete.

[Feidam]

Because when healers had many dps skills it created a very toxic player base. If you healed more then dps then you’d be kicked. If the group thought you didn’t contribute enough dps they would bash you and kick you. The toxicity was all to real. Then some healers just dps and didn’t heal much. There was so much mess going on.

New players were horrified to play healers because the veterans created this healer dps toxic community.

Since healer dps changes. The community isn’t very toxic anymore. People don’t care to jump down a healers throat for dps anymore.

This right here was a big problem for while. And then we can add on all the other elitist type things players did that led to utility removal. Enough people were requiring players switch classes to X that there were complaints all the time. So we lost utility and had nerfs to what stayed. I mean for all the complaints of AST card changes most AST just balance fished anyway. So this new system is now all balance cards.

[Azbroolah]

I mean for all the complaints of AST card changes most AST just balance fished anyway. So this new system is now all balance cards.

This is true to an extent, but only because the other cards were really just not very good most of the time. Balance and Spear (after it was changed to crit) were just straight-up better than the other choices. Spire was basically a dead draw (Royal Road/Minor Arcana fodder only), Ewer was only very situationally useful (making it also Royal Road/Minor Arcana fodder), Bole was not possible to intelligently play around (because if you need mitigation you need it on-demand, not RNG), and Arrow was actively bad for most classes other than BLM because it resulted in misaligned burst windows. AST players weren't Balance/Spear fishing because of "elitism" (whatever that means), but because it was the only choice that made sense 99% of the time.

[Sqwall]

This is true to an extent, but only because the other cards were really just not very good most of the time. Balance and Spear (after it was changed to crit) were just straight-up better than the other choices. Spire was basically a dead draw (Royal Road/Minor Arcana fodder only), Ewer was only very situationally useful (making it also Royal Road/Minor Arcana fodder), Bole was not possible to intelligently play around (because if you need mitigation you need it on-demand, not RNG), and Arrow was actively bad for most classes other than BLM because it resulted in misaligned burst windows. AST players weren't Balance/Spear fishing because of "elitism" (whatever that means), but because it was the only choice that made sense 99% of the time.

Your right about Balance and Spear being the notable choice form HW to SB. Was I fishing for them? Not particularly. I kind of dealt with w/e ever was thrown at me as a HW, SB astro. It wasn't ideal to wait for redraw cooldowns to play certain cards. I would royal the best fit 99% of the time and that was usually for Ewer/Spire for AOE.

For Plays? Balance was usually the go to. Spear right behind that. And then arrow. Bole was pretty useless and highly situational.

Astro's skill ceiling in HW and SB (especially SB) was so high that most just threw out Balance/AOE so to avoid Draw drift. You had to be fast as an AST or you would lose your place and maybe forget to look at the Party list HP values.

I took a different approach to ASTRO. I would build my royals and plays to the team specifically. SAM or DRG Arrow/Time extend + Time dilation. BLM, SMN, RDM Balance/potency buff + time dilation. MNK, NIN, Spear/Time extend + Time dilation.
The key here was watching the battle also.
DRG used Left eye/right eye. Play on DRG.
SMN popped Bahamut. Play on SMN
NIN used Trick Attack. Play on NIN or other heavy DPS.

Follow up with arcana if RNG is bad after play.

I was surprised how well things would line up and my cards would be ready for the next burst phase after I started playing that way.

The current AST is literally a 50/50 hip fire playstyle now which is due to the previous expansions building up DPS as the main focus, and SHB doubling down on DPS hard.

AST now only cares about Ranged DPS or Melee DPS as it's quite literally all the same now card wise. 1 Draw/Play, 1 Draw,Redraw,Play, Sleeve Draw, Divination. Rinse repeat. No thinking...No strat....just DPS leading up to more AOE dps buff.

I miss Split and Royal Road as it really added a lot to the class, AST is still insanely easy to play, but now I don't have to think on my feet as much. Sad

[Feidam]

This is true to an extent, but only because the other cards were really just not very good most of the time. Balance and Spear (after it was changed to crit) were just straight-up better than the other choices. Spire was basically a dead draw (Royal Road/Minor Arcana fodder only), Ewer was only very situationally useful (making it also Royal Road/Minor Arcana fodder), Bole was not possible to intelligently play around (because if you need mitigation you need it on-demand, not RNG), and Arrow was actively bad for most classes other than BLM because it resulted in misaligned burst windows. AST players weren't Balance/Spear fishing because of "elitism" (whatever that means), but because it was the only choice that made sense 99% of the time.

Was speaking about the idea of specific buffs leading to the exclusive practice of those or else. Not anything specific within the AST community. While the other AST buffs were niche it does not change the fact that balance and to a lesser extent spear fishing contributed to the “X” or go home attitudes that part of the ffxiv community held in terms of stacking utility.

Personally I liked the original AST card system. Was really enjoyable. But it was a bit over powered in comparison to others. I wish they had taken the utility and spread it around but unless everyone had the same potential for utility as their role counterparts it wouldn’t have fixed the issue.

[Azbroolah]

Personally I liked the original AST card system. Was really enjoyable. But it was a bit over powered in comparison to others. I wish they had taken the utility and spread it around but unless everyone had the same potential for utility as their role counterparts it wouldn’t have fixed the issue.

I liked it too. It definitely felt nice being able to put out a spread Balance at the right times, and it was fun to try to put one together. I really liked Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition as well. But, I think it's easy to see why they changed it. The design philosophy in this game doesn't really lend itself to utility options besides Damage Up or Vulnerability Down buffs, which is sad. I still like playing AST (though mostly because SCH and WHM just feel kind of bad...) but it's definitely not as interesting as it used to be. Can only hope they have some nice changes up their sleeves for healers in Endwalker.

Ewer wasn't a bad card. It just didn't work on the jobs that could have used it..

I mean, in the end that's kind of why it was bad, right? It was designed with some pretty big limitations in mind that made it really situational.