Healer Queues are going to be different?

[Risvertasashi]

Did I understand it correctly?
On the last live letter they said that they were "planing to create a different type of queue for healers, so that the healing composition was always made out of a pure healer and a shield healer (in raids and trials)

If I understood this correctly. What are you guys thoughts on that? Since most people will be very excited to play sage and it probably will be the most seen at the start of the upcoming expansion.

I welcome the change.

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As far as systems design goes, I imagine it will be a soft requirement - if only shield healers or only pure healers are available, it'll probably match them together anyways after a time.

With all that said, I'm not worried about sages flooding the queues. I think one thing bears in mind - White Mage is always massively, massively popular, even when it gets the crap end of the meta stick (which is pretty much always). This is even what leads to a lot of the healer imbalances - SE buffs Astro and Scholar in an attempt to get more people to play them, but white mage's massive playerbase won't really switch unless white mage falls really far behind. We saw this last expac. And even for this expac, despite people saying "WHM does so much DPS!", it's been behind AST+SCH in combination, and lately, it's behind AST and SCH both individually as well.

But people don't say WHM is dead; right now in particular, they say SCH is dead. That's not because SCH isn't powerful though, it's due to playstyle issues; and white mage, despite being the weakest overall, is "close enough" that it retains its massive playerbase.

So, I don't see the queues bottlenecking around too many shield healers.

[Rongway]

The Raid Finder, which is used for matchmaking in high-end duties, will function the same as before with the exception of the healer role category. We understand that some of you would like the matchmaking settings to be divided even further to avoid being matched with other players of the same job. However, encounters are generally designed to be completed with any party composition and splitting the roles even further would lead to longer matchmaking times, so only the healer role has been divided.

Only Raid Finder will force AST/WHM + SGE/SCH. As in, only the most recent Extreme trial, the current Unreal trial (whenever they return), and the current Savage raids.




The Regular Duty Finder will still just use whatever two healers are available. This change will basically not even affect anyone outside of JP because NA and EU players don't queue for Extremes and Savages, so please stop bashing the devs for this misunderstanding. There are plenty of other things we can complain about that actually are their fault. This isn't one of them.

[LaylaAlder]

Honestly, I don't think it'll be too much of an issue. Get a Pure and Shield healer built up, then just toggle which one you use based on which one is needed more.

[SweetPete]

Every expansion people rush to play the new jobs. Give it a few weeks most will go back to their main jobs. There will still be a hefty amount of Whm and Ast players. Healer queues will be fine.

[PondHollow]

I believe he was talking about only Raidfinder. The same way it won't put 3 melee in a party for high-end content, it won't put 2 shield healers.

Only JP servers use raidfinder, so it's not relevant to most of us here.

[NorthernLadMSP]

What's worse is enforcing this Dichotomy when it pretty much doesn't exist.

Pure healers have shields, shield healers have regens.

What's the damn point of separating them now?

Exactly. Proves they have no clue what they're doing in regard to healers.

[Imora]

I believe he was talking about only Raidfinder. The same way it won't put 3 melee in a party for high-end content, it won't put 2 shield healers.

Only JP servers use raidfinder, so it's not relevant to most of us here.

I distinctly recall using it in HW but not for savages. Is my memory shot? When it it become high end only?

Hm. *scratches head*

[Irenia]

I distinctly recall using it in HW but not for savages. Is my memory shot? When it it become high end only?

Hm. *scratches head*

The most recent extreme will be in there too.

I remember using Raid Finder to pug Sophia EX, because it was in an interesting position where we had the Raid Finder, but the cross server DF wasn't a thing yet.

[HyperiusUltima]

I'm pretty sure a majority of players are still going to creep over to Reaper, especially with how intriguing its play was when showcased on the LL stream. I won't expect a whole ton of the Healer Playerbase to jump straight to SGE and flood the queues(and thus force a Tank reliance) but I expect mostly still much of the same.

As for the dichotomy issue people are talking about, separating them has to have reason for it, and it's probably something they've altered within the kits themselves to force them into this position alongside the stat squish they did. We'll need to see what it all is on the 13th for a more accurate judgement on separating into Pure and Shield Healers.

[Hysterior]

That's also why I think I will level WHM first.
I think a lot of people will want to try Sage from the get go so it should be easier to get spots as WHM/AST.
(+ parties will probably need at least one healer that knows their job while Sages are learning haha)

Edit:
Feels bad for SCH though :/