The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[Renathras]

And personally, I wish 'Pure vs Barrier' referred to what they provide, when I heard 'barrier' the first time I thought Virus, Disable, Eye4Eye, etc. But no, what we have is not a distinction in gameplay, nor in what they provide. Pures can provide mit and shields, Barriers can provide pure healing throughput. I guess what it refers to is 'what is available as a zero-CD GCD, shield or regen effect?' But even then, AST presses one button and can suddenly provide both, so who knows at this point? 's why I made that thread, to complain that the split doesn't work, and rather than spend MORE time trying to fix it, I'd rather they just throw it out as a failed experiment, as they did with MT/OT split. Give WHM Stoneskin/SS2, upgrade them to Afflatus Whatever, give AST Nocturnal Sect back, let them swap in combat

The split is mostly which ones can cast and provide shields (Adlo, Succor, Seraph, Eukrasian Diagnosis, Eukrasian Prognosis, Haima, Panhaima, Holos now) and mitigation (...yeah, ALL those mitigation buttons) and who...can't. Pure healers each have one mitigation button (Temperance per 2 min and Collective Unconscious per 1 min) and have a 2 charge single target shield (Divine Benison / Celestial Intersection) and a single target mitigation effect (Aquaveil / Exaltation). They have no party shields and no high uptime mitigation potential, though AST's isn't terrible because it's up frequently (and it has buffs), which is why AST is still allowed to be in the meta.

The reason it doesn't work is because SCH and SGE's healing is on par with AST and WHM's. Not their spam GCD heals, but their oGCD heals are ridiculously powerful, and up very frequently. (Though their spam heals are not, when the shields are factored in, really weaker - e.g. Eukrasian Diagnosis' heal + shield is more potency than Cure 2's heal is.)

SGE and SCH have 4 oGCD heals that can be used frequently with AF/AG, including both single target and AOE that are about as powerful as Cure 2/Tetra/Solace and Medica/Assize, and the AOE one is only limited by a 30 sec CD. They also both have a mitigation on that same CD that also has a regen effect not too much weaker than Medica 2's. And this is all free for SCH and only costs SGE a 100 potency Energy Drain, as they're all oGCD. SGE is, in fact, encouraged to burn AG stacks to keep its MP pool up since each gives 7% MP on use. Meaning not only is there no loss, there's a gain.

SGE further has Physis, which is powerful. Holos is powerful. Haima and Panhaima are powerful. Pepsis can turn a meh GCD into a pretty nice heal. Zoe can turn a nice AOE heal from Pneuma into a damage neutral Cure 3 and some change or Eukrasian shields into something actually useful. Krasis (as I recently learned) can be super useful with Soteria but also for making big tank shields, and Eukrasia Dosis is not QUITE instant cast but responsive enough to whip out right before a tank buster, possibly using Pepsis on the back end to heal any damage with whatever's left of the shield. And SGE also heals its Kardia target for roughly 1/4th of a Cure 2/Tetra completely free in terms of GCD, damage lost, or MP cost of the heal.

In addition to the above on AF, SCH also has free healing with Eos, a powerful party HoT with Whispering Dawn, a meh but useful supplemental party heal with Fey Blessing, a healing power boost (and magic damage resist, which is what most raidwides are) in Fey Illumination, damage mitigation (and speed boost) in Expedience, further shields (that stack) with Serap and Consolation, boosted single target healing with Protraction, frankly ridiculous shielding with Protraction + Recitation + Adlo + Deployment Tactics (Recitation can also be used on Indom and Excogitation and does not compete with Energy Drain potency loss because it can't be used for that so there's no contest), directed nearly free (since you're spending AF and not overcapping it, nor are you using Faerie Gauge for anything else anyway) healing with Aetherpact, the ability to turn Adlo into a stronger Cure 2 or Succor into a stronger Medica once per 15 seconds (FIFTEEN! This ability is practically up again just after you use it!) with Emergency Tactics, the ability to boost healing even further (for the Adlo spread or for the Emergency Tactics) with Dissipation (which also grants yet more AF stacks), and on top of all that, brings Chain Strategem.

The Barrier healers can provide nearly the same raw healing as the Pure healers can. So it's not even a Pure / Barrier split. It's a Pure / Barrier + Pure split, as the Barrier side can provide the same healing as a Pure healer anyway for all practical intents and purposes.

Sure, WHM can spam Cure 3 (briefly), but outside of JUST that, every other healing tool WHM has, SCH and SGE can match, and with either short enough CDs they can use them frequently, longer CDs but enough abilities they can cycle through them and still have plenty to spare, or outright with their GCD heals being as strong as Medica and Cure 2 once we include the shield components (or outright stronger when we consider Emergency Tactics / Pepsis as short CDs that can be used to boost those shields into raw healing and will be up almost every time you need them anyway.)

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Either the Barrier Healers' heals are too strong, or the Pure Healers' heals are too weak (and as I said before, WHM's are too MP inefficient for protracted spamming anyway, somewhat negating their power). It's one thing to be able to heal 4 man content, but point for point, Barrier healers can output as much raw healing in many cases as Pure Healers (in short bursts - which is what encounter design demands) and then all those CDs are up again by the next time healing is needed.