Live letter expectations.

[Crushnight]

If we're splitting healers into two cathegories, does that mean Shield Healers no longer compete against Pure healers for a spot in a Full party?

Sage competes against Scholar for the shield healer spot and White Mage competes agaisnt Astrologian for the pure healer spot.

That opens for more daring healing design synergies between Pure and Shield healers.

This also means SCH and WHM are no longer enemies.

That is probably their intention but design WILL run counter intuitive to this intention just like with ShB healer design vs intention(we have been dpsing more than ever before in this expansion yet their intent was to make us more heal focused so yeah it backfired) for a few reasons:

1. Every healer and any combo of healers must be able to complete all duty finder content this means that the regen healers will have more than sufficient shields and shielding healers will have more than enough healing power to handle this, making the split seem silly to the majority of the playerbase because it'll be Savage and Ultimate where this split may become relevant. (This is proven in the benchmark trailer where Ast/Whm/Sage all showed a shield and Sch showing off a heal, riveting >_>)

2. Gear will devalue the split as time goes on, content will get crept and as it does shields become less necessary making the split seem pointless again.

At this point the job devs do not know how to make healers anything but functional and even then they have screwed up that in the past(3.0-3.1 Ast, 4.X Whm lillies, 5.0 no energy drain for Sch etc), while the content design devs rarely factor in what a healer can do(All healers got Repose this expansion, a single lv 80 role quest does not validate this decision to remove it from Whm for a role action, CCs are so rarely utilised even when the devs can force groups to have specific ones) so yeah I am jaded at this point and I have no faith the developers actually know what they are doing with regards to healer design beyond "Hey it functions" .

[FoxCh40s]

I am honestly entertained by the shield/pure healer concept. The so-called shield healer(SCH) can actually heal a target in a lot more ways than it can shield it. Can't wait to see Sage. In the reveal we only saw Sage's version of a baby heal, ST attack, Barrier spell(could just as well be something like Aldo), AoE and that's it. A little bit embarrassing tbh. The actual kit for healing which makes Sage different than the other healers is not represented at all.

That's because it likely won't be. Healers now are pretty much identical. I doubt that won't be the case continuing forward.

[Roeshel]

That's because it likely won't be. Healers now are pretty much identical. I doubt that won't be the case continuing forward.

The only identical part is the 1 dot, 1 nuke, 1 AoE, the baby heal, and the normal heal.

For AST, cards are unique, divination is unique, Collective unconscious and Celestion Opposition are unique, Earthly Star has damage and massive raid-wide cure potency, which is almost instant, on oGCD, again unique. Neutral Sect differs from Dissipation and Temperance because it changes GCD casts, this is something unique to AST. Horoscope, Celestial Intersection, and Essential Dignity are also unique oGCDs that belong to AST.

For SCH, the fairy plus all of the fairy commands which are 6 in total if we include Seraph. Chain Stratagem, Recitation, Idomitability, Lustrate, Aetherflow, Dissipation, Sacred Soil, Excognication. These abilities are unique to SCH. Their normal heal - Aldo, also has a special effect. Deployment and Emergency Tactics are odd utility abilities but they should be mentioned. Let's not forget about Ruin II which enables weaving and Energy Drain which makes weaving almost DPS neutral.

For WHM, Presence of Mind, Assize, Asylum, Divine Benison, Thin Air, Benediction, Temperance - 30y radius party-wide damage reduction ability that synergizes with the lilies, Plenary Indulgence, Tetragrammaton, Lily spells, and Afflatus Misery. We can also add Cure III since we are talking about uniqueness and that ability is still used somewhere in the game, unlike Fluid Aura. Holy's stun effect should be included in WHM's uniqueness as well.

The way the healer jobs are designed allows for braindead spamming of gcd healing spells in order to heal what someone who knows the class can heal by fully utilizing their healing kit. How you heal while dps-ing is the real gameplay of healers. What I saw in the Sage reveal is what 80% of the healers in duty finder do. That's not an actual representation of the class. They showcased a lot more of Reaper's abilities.

When I am playing Sage I don't expect to heal with the abilities showcased, unless they are oGCDs which I doubt they are. The only spells that I will be using are the offensive ones. I really hope the one which I think is an AoE attack is not actually an AoE attack but more like an augmented version of their ST spell or something like that. They did say that Sage can augment their abilities which sounds interesting at least to me.

[Recon1o6]

Diurnal ast and whm are even more identical though

1 dot, 1 nuke, 1 aoe, 1 baby heal thats got a trap trait, 1 regular heal boosted by said trap trait, 1 heal+regen, 1 aoe heal, 1 aoe heal+regen, 1 haste buff, 1 aoe damage and heal ogcd and they are just the ones off the top of my head

That's what foxchaos is getting at. Going into 6.0 "whm" and "ast" will be even more identical sadly. They're barely more than conjurers with ogcd heals as it stands.

[Roeshel]

Diurnal ast and whm are even more identical though

1 dot, 1 nuke, 1 aoe, 1 baby heal thats got a trap trait, 1 regular heal boosted by said trap trait, 1 heal+regen, 1 aoe heal, 1 aoe heal+regen, 1 haste buff, 1 aoe damage and heal ogcd and they are just the ones off the top of my head

That's what foxchaos is getting at. Going into 6.0 "whm" and "ast" will be even more identical sadly. They're barely more than conjurers with ogcd heals as it stands.

Lightspeed is different from Presence of Mind and it's not actually a haste buff. It makes normal GCD casts instant, giving you time to weave and move while Presence of Mind gives you only a spell speed boost. You don't want to move while that buff is active.

Glare = Malefic IV
Dia = Combust III
Cure = Benefic
Cure II = Benefic II
Regen =? Aspected Benefic
Medica = Helios
Medica II = Aspected Helios

When you remove the redundant heals you are left with:

Glare = Malefic IV
Dia = Combust III
Regen =? Aspected Benefic
Medica II =? Aspected Helios

Aspected Benefic and Helios are not completely the same as WHM's Regen and Medica II because under Neutral Sect they can shield.

Everything else is simply different. That's it about the identical part in AST and WHM. In regards to their AoE, Holy is definitely a different type of AoE than Gravity. Holy is centered around you, stuns, and should be cast back to back. Gravity - 25y range of casting, 5y radius of effect, allows for weaving of 1 oGCD before casting the next one. It is true that every healer has 1 aoe which more or less makes them identical but the way you play around your AoE differs for every healer role.

[NobleWinter]

Lightspeed is different from Presence of Mind and it's not actually a haste buff. It makes normal GCD casts instant, giving you time to weave and move while Presence of Mind gives you only a spell speed boost. You don't want to move while that buff is active.

Glare = Malefic IV
Dia = Combust III
Cure = Benefic
Cure II = Benefic II
Regen =? Aspected Benefic
Medica = Helios
Medica II = Aspected Helios

When you remove the redundant heals you are left with:

Glare = Malefic IV
Dia = Combust III
Regen =? Aspected Benefic
Medica II =? Aspected Helios

Aspected Benefic and Helios are not completely the same as WHM's Regen and Medica II because under Neutral Sect they can shield.

Everything else is simply different. That's it about the identical part in AST and WHM. In regards to their AoE, Holy is definitely a different type of AoE than Gravity. Holy is centered around you, stuns, and should be cast back to back. Gravity - 25y range of casting, 5y radius of effect, allows for weaving of 1 oGCD before casting the next one. It is true that every healer has 1 aoe which more or less makes them identical but the way you play around your AoE differs for every healer role.

This seemed laughable to me at first but the more I think about it the more it seems like a valid reason for the ridiculous homogenization of healers. On the surface all these "differences" seem meaningful and Im sure the development staff think so as well. Once you settle into healing and become thoroughly acquainted with the three kits available the differences start to be less and less impactful until they stop existing altogether. Neutral Sect, an endgame skill, doesnt make 90% of the duties any better where it isnt available and you still are a WHM clone. Presence of mind making you cast faster during a hardcast rez doesnt feel very different from a shorter hardcast rez under Lightspeed. Spamming a player based aoe as WHM in the middle of a mob with a stun and dancing around aoes while doing the same as Scholar also starts to feel very similiar. The differences have lost meaning for most of us veteran healers and you can tell it's someone who hasn't been forged in the fires of combat who is coming up with healer design. The answer is to make them all MORE similiar each expansion and it couldn't be a more a dull path to take as they prune the differences and simplify whats left.

[Boizinho]

Lightspeed is different from Presence of Mind and it's not actually a haste buff. It makes normal GCD casts instant, giving you time to weave and move while Presence of Mind gives you only a spell speed boost. You don't want to move while that buff is active.

Aspected Benefic and Helios are not completely the same as WHM's Regen and Medica II because under Neutral Sect they can shield.

AST having almost strictly superior versions of WHM's spells doesn't mean they're not effectively the same thing. AST just gets a +1 because reasons.

Celestial Intersection is Divine Benison +1. Essential Dignity is Tetragrammaton +1. Horoscope is Plenary Indulgence +1 in most situations. Neutral Sect and Temperance both increase healing potency by 20% while providing temporary mitigation. Earthly Star and Assize are both AoE oGCDs that heal and deal damage, and whose healing aspect is often ignored if it encroaches on its DPS capabilities too much (Assize being a far worse offender).

In my opinion the real uniqueness boils down to these spells:

Celestial Opposition
Collective Unconscious
Draw/Redraw/Play/Sleeve Draw
Divination
Synastry
Thin Air
Asylum
Afflatus spells
Cure 3
Holy/Gravity

For me, it's not enough to prevent WHM from feeling like what AST would be like if it were allowed to unequip its job stone.

[FoxCh40s]

Diurnal ast and whm are even more identical though

1 dot, 1 nuke, 1 aoe, 1 baby heal thats got a trap trait, 1 regular heal boosted by said trap trait, 1 heal+regen, 1 aoe heal, 1 aoe heal+regen, 1 haste buff, 1 aoe damage and heal ogcd and they are just the ones off the top of my head

That's what foxchaos is getting at. Going into 6.0 "whm" and "ast" will be even more identical sadly. They're barely more than conjurers with ogcd heals as it stands.

"Finally, someone who speaks English."

- Tony Stark

[FoxCh40s]

Lightspeed is different from Presence of Mind and it's not actually a haste buff. It makes normal GCD casts instant, giving you time to weave and move while Presence of Mind gives you only a spell speed boost. You don't want to move while that buff is active.

Glare = Malefic IV
Dia = Combust III
Cure = Benefic
Cure II = Benefic II
Regen =? Aspected Benefic
Medica = Helios
Medica II = Aspected Helios

When you remove the redundant heals you are left with:

Glare = Malefic IV
Dia = Combust III
Regen =? Aspected Benefic
Medica II =? Aspected Helios

Aspected Benefic and Helios are not completely the same as WHM's Regen and Medica II because under Neutral Sect they can shield.

Everything else is simply different. That's it about the identical part in AST and WHM. In regards to their AoE, Holy is definitely a different type of AoE than Gravity. Holy is centered around you, stuns, and should be cast back to back. Gravity - 25y range of casting, 5y radius of effect, allows for weaving of 1 oGCD before casting the next one. It is true that every healer has 1 aoe which more or less makes them identical but the way you play around your AoE differs for every healer role.

Semantics, ones that frankly the Healer community is just tired of hearing.

They all play the same, all of my buttons are in the exact same place on all my healers, because they functionally identical in every single way.

[Roeshel]

...

They don't. Saying that all healers function the same because all healers can heal is the same as saying all dps are identical because guess what, all dps deal damage.

I would like to know how are all of your buttons in the exact same place for all healers when whm kit is half empty when compared to the other two healers.

Healers don't need dots, we need rotation and flashy spells. WHM most definitely needs more spells. Spiritual Ray, Flood, and Tornado should have become WHM's abilities already. The effects are already present in the game. The bots can use them but we can't. Why? I was baited by Y'shotola's Roleplay Duty into thinking that WHM has Spiritual Ray at max level. I'd trade my raising lb3 for that spell. WHM LB3 is just you kneeling on the ground with no effects suggesting that you draw power from nature. Scholar's LB3 introduced seraph 6 years ago in regards to looks and they got it as a playable button in Shb. AST LB3 is godlike. If only there weren't so feminine in almost every action that they use. Divination looks cool and is a much more balanced and secure version of the balance card + spread to the whole party method that they had before. There is no point pretending that the other 5 cards were not completely useless. I will not lie though, when I was new to these forums, reading to the healer complaints about AST I was left with the impression that pre-Shb days AST cards were in some grand spot. It's actually quite the opposite. You had to be extremely lucky in order to be able to perform optimally and nobody likes RNG gated optimal performance. It is why Sleeve Draw was changed into securing your 3rd seal, instead of giving you 3-4 random cards.

In any case, healers don't function identically in every single way. Healers being capable of healing approximately the same amount of HPS does not make them identical, it makes them balanced.

SCH used to be a healer with DoTs. They even had Aero which is a wind spell, completely out of place for SCH and nonsensical. Bio and Bio II, Miasma & Miasma II, Shadow Flare & Bane. And they had no AoE filler spell. Shadow Flare looked like NIN's Doton mixed with BLM's Flare both in colors and in effects. I'd like to have it but with better effects and a wider range. In any case, even with these DoTs present, SCH ended up spamming their 1 nuke most of the time again. The gameplay from back then is no different from the current one when it comes to a single target. The battle counter is exactly the same. You have 1 nuke and 5-6 dots to fall into the delusional that you have a rotation. Aside from Miasma II and Shadow Flare all other DoTs are a weaker version of your newest DoT that you happened to be able to use and you ended up using because your nuke dealt less damage than them. If broil had higher potency and in Shb it does, you would have removed those DoTs from your bar and deem them as redundant and useless spells because they are actually not part of your rotation. You have no rotation. Healers never had an actual rotation. It has always been nuke and dots. The only semblance of a rotation that we have are the trap traits in the baby heals for free Cure II or crit Benefic II that need to be removed.

I am starting to get the feeling that most of the "Healers used to be great Shb ruined them" are completely unfounded claims. Having Dot + DoT II & DoT III is nothing short of amazing. Healers have always been found lacking when it comes to DPS-ing.