Healers, then and now:

[Renathras]

Now, to look at AST.

One issue with AST is that a LOT of its rotation isn't GCD. That is, as far as I can tell, for most/all of AST's history, it's only had one spamnuke and one DoT, and was actually the pioneer of this playstyle/rotation. Further, what it lost is hard to actually put a value to in a rotational or gameplay sense. "2.5 less Aero 3 per minute" is easily quantifiable. "No longer have nAST" is...not. I mean, it's obvious to SAY, but think about trying to explain, in "math" "lost nAST". It's not a rotation, it doesn't have uses per minute, and so on. It's an entire playstyle more or less just "gone", but it's not something that can be quantified into hard data to make comparisons with.

I'm not quite sure, then, that I can treat AST as I did the other two above. But, we can start by looking at its DPS kit and then talking about the other changes in more...qualitative terms. And I think that's really the way AST changes have to be looked at. WHM and SCH CAN be looked at quantitatively, but I think AST is kind of a qualitative thing. "It still has 6 cards and you use them one more time per minute", "Yeah, but they all do basically the same thing, you can't convert them into buffing the next one, stock one for later, readily redraw them, or convert them into a Minor Arcana" (and all this being oGCD, btw!)

Stormblood:

Malific III - spam nuke, 1.5 sec cast (only one in the game at the time) allowing oGCD weaves. Upgrade path from Malific I, II.
Combust II - Instant cast, 30 sec duration DoT (same as now)
Gravity - AOE spam nuke, only Healer AOE with a range, though required a target and was weaker than WHM and SCH AOEs.
(oGCD...I think) Lord of Crowns - Random 50/50 result from Minor Arcana, itself taking one of your buff Cards and converting it into this. Use was highly RNG, locked behind both the Draw timer and contingent on you getting a Card you really didn't want and further behind the 50/50 chance of getting this or Lady of Crowns instead. Not a reliable part of the rotation.
(oGCD) Earthly Star - 60 sec CD, largely used on CD for the backbone scaffolding of your healing plan for encounters, the damage being an extra bonus. Included for completeness, but shouldn't really count as a DPS ability in this sense, as while used on CD like Assize, it was used for the healing component, not the damage component, which would be seen as the bonus rather than the feature (opposite the way Assize is viewed)

This is basically identical to AST's damage kit today, other than Lord of Crowns is a 50/50 on a 60 sec CD (not based on Draw and getting bad Cards). Malific, Combust, Gravity, and Earthly Star work the exact same way and are used in the exact same ways today, complete with the exact same cast times as far as I can tell other than Gravity going from a 3 sec cast to a 1.5 sec cast.

A lot of what has changed on AST ultimately comes down to the Cards/Arcana.

I didn't mention it with SCH, but a lot of its oGCD non-damaging kit has stayed the same. That is, Selene, Shadow Flare, and Bane were dropped and Energy Drain nerfed, but otherwise their oGCD kit is MOSTLY the same. In WHM's case, theirs largely is as well - Divine Seal replaced with Temperance, some stuff like that, but mostly it was some CDs got a bit shorter and that was about it.

...in the case of AST, it had two sections of its oGCD kit, and both were large. We can call these "General Use" and "Card" oGCDs.

General Use oGCDs:

Lightspeed - Like today's, it still reduces cast time today, but doesn't reduce MP cost like it used to (not that AST needs it at this point...), shorter CD today (90 instead of the original 120 sec)

Time Dilation - 90 sec CD, extended positive buffs on a single party member for 15 sec. Could be used for Card buffs, but also things like Collective or Aspected Benefic...or both on the same person for ridiculous HoT power. One of the more interesting abilities in AST's kit given the various ways you could use it.

Collective Unconscious - Used to be 90 sec CD, now it's 60.

Celestial Opposition - Used to be an AOE Time Dilation instead of the damage-less Assize or kinda/sorta Physis it is now. Oh, and that even worked on Lucid Dreaming. Crazy, huh? 120 sec CD vs today's 60...but seems worth it.

Diurnal/Nocturnal Sect - We all know more or less what they did. Today's AST is ARGUABLY a dAST with benefits, as it has some nAST abilities, though arguably some it gained in ShB already (via Neutral Sect). As I said before, it's REALLY hard to QUANTIFY what this did for AST. You weren't actively switching stances, and it wasn't a GCD, nor did it really have an effect on your GCD gameplay much other than slightly altering how you might use some spells (dAST Aspected Benefic was an instant cast Regen so could be used with movement where I think nAST's was a cast time Adlo...though I don't remember for sure). Anyway, it's one of those "can't put into numbers, but clearly was a loss when removed" things.

Card/Arcana oGCDs:

Draw - 30 sec CD vs 20 of today, and it didn't have stacks back then AND Draw didn't go on CD until the Card was used in one of various ways. But...
Arcana Card Buffs - 6 total: Spire (TP regen for 15 sec), Ewer (MP regen for 15 sec), Bole (20% damage reduction for 30 sec), Arrow (10% haste/speed - casting/weaponskill/recast for 30 sec), Spear (10% crit for 30 sec), Balance (10% damage increase for 30 sec). Needless too say, people generally fished for Balance. BUT, there was more to Cards than just Draw and Play...

Undraw - Just like today, when you learn this ability, the correct action is to remove it from your action bar. Back then you could even simply right-click the Card buff to dismiss it. Wonder if you still can...

Royal Road - This is when it starts to get interesting. 15 sec CD, Royal Road will consume your held Card without buffing anyone, BUT it buffs the NEXT card you Play. The buff to your buffs ("Yo dawg, we heard you like buffs...") depended on the Card so consumed: Spire/Ewer (next Card effect is now AOE, but half duration; this is where Celestial Opposition could be VERY powerful...), Arrow/Spear (next Card effect will last twice as long), Bole/Balance (next Card's effect will be increased by 50%). Note you could only have one Royal Road effect primed at a time.

Empty Road - If you like how useless Undraw is, now you have TWO of them! /insertPhantomMenaceMeme You could ALSO dismiss that buff by right-clicking, making this a wasted hotbar space unless you were exclusively a controller player.

Spread - 30 sec CD, Stocks a Card for later, letting Draw go on CD to get a second Card. This was Draw charges before there was such a thing as charges. If a Card was played from Spread (by using the Spread button again), it would consume any Royal Road effect you had, so you could kind of set aside a "good" or situational Card until a situation came up to use it (e.g. Bole for a tankbuster) or until you had a Royal Road effect up that you wanted or a burst window you wanted to put it in, etc.

Undraw Spread - Did I say TWO? I meant THREE.

Redraw - 30 sec CD, again, charges don't exist yet, used to toss your currently Drawn Card and picks another. The replacement will not be the same Card. Doesn't work on (or seem to affect) the Spread Card, meaning in theory you could have two of the same Card ready to go, I guess? Note that the CD matches Draw, meaning you get roughly one shot per Draw to change the Card (same as today).

Minor Arcana - 5 sec CD, only works on presently Drawn Card, not Spreads; consumes Drawn Card and draws a Lord/Lady of Crowns, 50/50 chance. Lady AOE heals, Lord AOE damages. From the author of that document: "Useful for ditching trash cards, but quite situational." To use this, you'd need to not want the Card you have Drawn for either Royal Road OR Spread, basically, and have already attempted Redraw. Laughably, the Minor Arcana button was also how you played the Card (just like Spread), and they made them separate in EW until 6.2 or 6.3. XD A case of "You had it right IN THE FIRST PLACE", huh?

Sleeve Draw - This one is nuts. 120 sec CD, what it did was fill any AND ALL currently empty slots on your AST Job Gauge. That means if you had a Drawn Card, Spread Card, Royal Road effect, and Minor Arcana...this would wiff. On the other hand, if any of those - or ALL of those - were empty, it will fill them with a random effect. Even if all of the corresponding abilities (e.g. Draw) were on CD at the time. Sleeve Draw didn't care, it was CRAAAAAZY. It would do whatever it wanted. So it could be amazing or trash. As I again didn't know much about AST then (more now, but still hardly an expert), I'll quote the author to give you an idea how crazy this thing sounds like it was:

Fills any empty space on your HUD. This means it’ll give you a random Draw card, Royal Road effect, Spread card, and Minor Arcana but will not overwrite any of these currently in your possession. It does not care about the cooldown time of those abilities, and given most of them go on CD when you use the card they correspond to in your current situation, it means you can draw more cards than you’d normally be allowed to. It is very useful but is so random that it can be godlike or trash. It is tricky to use. I would recommend using this skill as often as possible, and if possible with an empty Royal Road, an empty Minor Arcana, a good Spread card, Draw on CD and Redraw available. A good Royal Road, empty Minor Arcana, empty Spread, Draw on CD and Redraw available is also a decent strategy. More on that in section IX - C.

.

SO...

...now that we got through all that, what's changed?

Well, for the General Use oGCDs, some nibbling around the edges, but the Card system is a husk.

Draw still exists, Play still exists, Undraw still exists (HOW?! WHYYY?!?!?!), and Redraw still exists. Redraw and Draw still have a 1:1 ratio of one Redraw per Draw on average, and Draw stacks to 2, kinda/sorta mimicking the Spread effect, but without you having as much choice in what the second Card is (before, you didn't EXACTLY have choice as it was still RNG, but you could choose what to Spread). So those are the parts that are MORE OR LESS the same.

Minor Arcana still exists, but is now a stand alone draw/play effect of its own, and doesn't consume the...more valuable?...buff Cards. In a way, this is PROBABLY an improvement.

Royal Road is gone, so there's not a good way to make useful fodder out of the less useful Cards. Especially now that Minor Arcana doesn't do it, either.

When people say "All Cards are now Balance", they aren't kidding. 5 Card effects, 3 Royal Road effects, all gone.

And Sleeve Draw - the high roller button that, good or bad, gave you a full slate of buff effects to start slinging; up to three (2 Cards and 1 Minor Arcana) and the first of those Cards with a random one of the 3 Royal Road effects.

.

That's a lot, considering how much pressing all those buttons would interfere with your other stuff going on. You were spamming Malific same as today, but in between those Malifics, that's a lot more brainpower used in considering which Cards to keep, which to play, which to covert, which to burn, and which (if any) to simply throw away. Including the Undraws, that's at least 9 Hotbar spots devoted entirely to Cards. 6 if you ignore the Undraws.

Granted, this was before Seals and Divination (ShB) and before flat Divination with Seals and Astrodyne, but there's a lot more brainpower going to all that.

.

I think AST is less a case of "DPS kit" or even "Number of unbroken (by GCDs) Malific casts" and more just "lots of other things going on in the oGCD department to keep the gameplay busy, even if pressing Malific like a metronome."

Again, this one's a lot harder to work out because the changes are far more to the oGCD game and its complexity than anything else. If anything, it's DPS kit is SLIGHTLY more involved, if for no other reason than Lord is going to show up a bit more frequently in EW than you might have had it in SB. But it's close enough to be identical.

[ty_taurus]

On the other thread, I talked about healers needing something to fill their gameplay while no healing is needed, and while DPS is the straightforward solution, it's not the only solution. As far as AST is concerned, I feel that it is very fitting to become the healer whos gameplay loop is about building a support engine while their DPS is dealt indirectly. You focus on support tools to build up effects for you to eventually detonate all at once, and the damage you "lose" not using Malefic is passed onto other party members to trigger for you (or yourself if you're playing solo), and I've danced around a lot of ideas over the last year on what that solution is. I really feel like I'm on the cusp of something great, but I can't pin it down exactly.

What I can say about AST is that its overall lack of popularity is largely due to two factors: The card system is too complicated/convoluted, and the constant single target swapping is cumbersome and physically unfun to play. It feels more like a chore for many players more than some type of rewarding system. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that its the business of the job that's the problem, but how annoying that business can feel when you're trying to maintain attacking the boss and weaving cards on different party members.

I ultimately can't speak on what the 7.0 AST rework will look like, but I have strong feelings that whatever we get is going to try and answer these two questions, for better or worse.

[Vinal211]

On the other thread, I talked about healers needing something to fill their gameplay while no healing is needed, and while DPS is the straightforward solution, it's not the only solution. As far as AST is concerned, I feel that it is very fitting to become the healer whos gameplay loop is about building a support engine while their DPS is dealt indirectly. You focus on support tools to build up effects for you to eventually detonate all at once, and the damage you "lose" not using Malefic is passed onto other party members to trigger for you (or yourself if you're playing solo), and I've danced around a lot of ideas over the last year on what that solution is. I really feel like I'm on the cusp of something great, but I can't pin it down exactly.

What I can say about AST is that its overall lack of popularity is largely due to two factors: The card system is too complicated/convoluted, and the constant single target swapping is cumbersome and physically unfun to play. It feels more like a chore for many players more than some type of rewarding system. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that its the business of the job that's the problem, but how annoying that business can feel when you're trying to maintain attacking the boss and weaving cards on different party members.

I ultimately can't speak on what the 7.0 AST rework will look like, but I have strong feelings that whatever we get is going to try and answer these two questions, for better or worse.

i feel like the cards are less convoluted and more just...uneeded these days? like when was the last time you looked at your cards and were able to accurately separate them beyond "this gives bonus melee and this gives bonus ranged". it was said in other threads (and i posted my own ideas on a massive revamp/return to SB card systems in one of those, i think it was the "what dps/utility options old or new would you add to healer" one), but since ShB's reworking of them into all being different flavors of Balance, the seals are the only thing keeping the cards from going down to 2 instead of 6. and IIRC, AST's kit was actually the basis for the healer revamp in ShB, cause i don't think it had an AoE DoT or anything resembling one.

As for your personal solution and ideas for improving, i would love to see what those are, even if you think they aren't the "right" answer or the greatness you're looking for.

[Renathras]

Alright, now that all that's done...

[HB]- dots and management of them is often one of the highest skillcap mechanics in a game like this.

Okay, I feel like this really is a "how you view it" thing. For a single target fight - which, let's face is, is what everything is balanced and focused on; LARGELY no one's talking about trash pulls in a 4 man or CT 24 man - it's binary. The only time that ANY thought needs to go into it AT ALL is when the boss is about to be untargetable or die, which happen relatively few times in most fights, and once you know the correct answer, it's ALWAYS the correct answer and goes back to being binary. Again, there's no system in place that gives you an alternate playstyle for deviating from the binary "correct vs wrong". It's not "one of the highest skillcap mechanics in a game like this" because it REQUIRES SKILL.

What the issue is is that DoTs are VERY BAD TO TRACK in the native UIs of literally every MMO ever made. FFXI, WoW, name an MMO with DoTs and we can probably find that people made add-ons to track DoT timers because the native UI was terrible at showing you when your DoTs were about to fall off. I still can't find a way to get my DoTs to show up in any way I can see them well on my screen or my Focus bar (the latter of which I have just to the side from the middle of my screen and at max size - sometimes my DoT doesn't even show up on it, it definitely isn't always on the left), and if we're talking AOE, there's literally NO WAY to see what your DoT timers are for any more than two targets. For the second Euphro fight, I focus target one of them and then main target the other and try to refresh my DoT at about the same time so they should be up again at the same time, but that's a workaround for the fact that DoT's are HORRIBLY badly tracked on native UIs.

You can tell a massive difference in MMOs based around DoTs or with DoT classes between the players using an add-on and those not. In WoW, you can configure them (WeakAuras was famously customizable) to tell you when your buffs (though those show up in party lists, at least) and debuffs were about to fall off, and you could tell a huge change in player "skill" based on merely whether a player had a DoT tracker or not.

I don't think that's a "skill" issue.

In theory, Snapshotting is a thing, but (a) the Devs seem to actually hate that and (b) with 2 min meta, it's stupidly easy as long as you're using everything on CD/refreshing on duration.

if they wanted to make it a 2charge burst GCD like phlegma, that's fine by me. others might complain about 'homogenization' though. i do think WHM doesn't really suit the idea of 'dots', i feel like it's aesthetic is more about burst so i can see it going either way

I find this far more agreeable.

the dots dont have to be a divisor of 120 do they?

Are DoTs no longer snapshotted? If not, then I guess they don't, it just makes things smooth and not feel like you're fighting pointless clunk. Does Iron Jaws reapply DoTs or does it extend their duration (e.g. letting you ride a Snapshot high)?

Either way, it's nicer when things break into 15/30/60/120/180 sec divisions. 18 just "feels" too short.

The problem with it being TOO short is you have to worry about people fighting refreshing their DoT or healing a critical person, which is something the Healer rotations are designed to AVOID. The Devs really don't want a "choose to damage or heal" dynamic. They want a "you're a healer first, DPS when no healing is needed" dynamic. I know some PLAYERS don't want that, but the design goal is that.

i even had nin in mind when i thought about it. a mini burst at 1min, and a bigger burst for the 2min window. trick and mug.

The problem here is that PoM isn't a party buff. So this would be more like using Fight or Flight then 60 seconds later, using Fight or Flight + Requiescat. Which is just...kinda silly.

Eye into Protraction is actually a really good idea and im angry i didnt think of it,

You know...it makes me irrationally happy that you like that idea. \o/

"Step Brothers (6/13) Best Movie Quote - Did we just become best friends? (2008)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-ZUDtaGf3I

Protect evolving to Plenary also works, though i'm not sure about the 6s duration you listed at lower levels, 10s would be fine,

I'm not picky about it, I just (a) want Protect back and (b) was using an "upgrade path" like what Shelltron, Raw Intuition, and Heart of Stone do. They start with a 6 sec duration then upgrade to 8 with a second layer for the first 4. But honestly, just making it 10 the whole time works. I figure half the protection of Temperance (5% vs 10%) for half the CD (60 sec vs 120 sec), and it's honestly the one thing _I_ feel that WHM is missing from its kit. Every other Healer has AT LEAST 3 mitigations per 2 mins (some more if we count shielding as additional mitigation), but WHM. And not only does WHM not have 3, it doesn't even have 2. It only has the 1, and its shielding is limited to max 2 people at a time. Giving it a 1 min CD "weaker" damage reduction would fix this problem, and tying it to Plenary would both make that ability more useful, fit its existing use case (just using it 2-3 sec before you would now), and shore up WHM's missing utility without needing to even add more button bloat.

not mentioned it in this thread, but i did in another one or three, yes i'd also have cure1 upgrade to cure2, same with benefic1 into 2, and physick into adlo.

Physic into Adlo is a bit weird since they're quite different in both cast time, MP cost, and more specifically, Physic is actually a stronger direct heal than Adlo. The problem is it's still mostly useless. XD Benefic 2 is already close enough of an upgrade to Benefic 1, I'm not sure why they didn't outright do it. Same cast time, 200 MP different but that's really not much (especially on AST), there's really just no reason not to.

The Medica/Holos ones are different, though. That'd be like saying Cure 1 should upgrade into Regen, which...doesn't make sense. You can get a "mini rotation" (if we actually...you know...used GCD heals) of Medica 2 + Medica + Medica or Medica + Medica 2 + Medica as the system is now. When I did the all class ZodEx run, that's how we dealt with his multi-strike lasers since you have no Afflatus abilities, oGCD heals, or even CURE 3 on CNJ (those are all WHM abilities). You apply Medica 2 first, since the party's still at fairly good health after the first strike and it gets the HoT ticking, then Medica spam since the first Medica lands around the third hit to fill people some, then the second Medica around the 5th hit, and for the soft enrage at the end, the final Medica (because after that you're pretty much dead as one of the CNJs) around the time of the eighth hit.

Point is, those are different abilities with different use cases. ANY time you would cast a Benefic 1, a Benefic 2 is better. Cure isn't QUITE as interchangeable since the MP gulf is bigger, but you can still make that same relative argument. On the other hand, Medica 2 is a weaker heal that sets up a HoT to tick while having a higher MP cost vs Medica with a slightly lower MP cost and lower overall healing, but somewhat more healing "right now", and useful when the party is spread out too much that a Cure 3 couldn't cover every one.

That is, I get the thought behind it, but they actually DO have different use cases. But the Cure 1/2 and Benefic 1/2 do not.

pretty sure they'd find a way to keep freecure though, they always do. though freecure isnt even the stupid one, no i'd say that honor goes to the 'benefic has a 15% chance to make next benefic2 guaranteed to crit' on AST. how did that survive until now

Honestly...agreed on both counts. Like, how are either of those still in the game? The mind boggles...

oh yeh one more thing to add on, a lower level version of Misery earned in the 50-60 range,

Not opposed to this, though I think the first mission is getting Solace down to a low level. I remember posting an ability mix-up before (just reshuffling), but I put Solace down at either 30 (moving Presence of Mind) or maybe it was 18 (moving Stone 2 - I figured if Stone 2 came in the 30-40 range, it'd feel a little less boring than using it for 36 levels...). I think that Solace really needs to be way earlier to establish the "use Lilies as your first line healing". Getting it before even Cure 2 would firmly establish that and make low level healing "Solace once the Tank's around 50%, Cure 1 as backup healing if you don't have any Lilies", firmly establishing the "GCD cast heals are for backup healing" mentality and getting people used to the Lilies early on, considering how key they are to WHM's rotation later on. Getting a lower level of Misery by (at latest) level 50 would be really nice, even if Solace was the only way to generate it at that level.

I still would like Lily spender that's a HoT, but maybe later.

[Renathras]

...

It's why one of my pitches is for Draw and/or Play to be GCDs that increase the damage of your next Malific (I don't know a good way to think about it, but maybe something VAGUELY like Raijin -> Forked/Fleeting Raiju on NIN where you use the one and then it unlocks the other with the second stacking to 3 charges) as kind of a way to slow down that APM a smidge to make targeting less onerous. If Draw and Play were GCDs and boosted your following Malifics, what this would allow in gameplay is for you to not have to worry about targeting a party member, Play, retargeting boss, Malific, Draw, targeting a party member, Play, retargeting boss, Malific, Draw, targeting a party member, Play, retargeting boss, Malific, Minor Arcana weave, and so on. It would break these steps up allowing you to Draw, target party member, Play, Draw, target next party member, Play, Draw, target next party member, Play, target boss, resume Malific spam, with those first 3/6 hitting harder to make it DPS neutral, and for people that really want to push the skill ceiling, they could use those to get more damage in the buff window.

It would both make AST burst a bit less murder on the fingers AND actually allow a higher skill expression with optimal play at the same time, giving it a high skill ceiling for those really wanting to push it.

Another alternative is for Draw to damage the target (if enemy) neutral with Malific, so that you could Draw, target, Play, swap back to boss, Draw; etc and only have to worry about 3 stacks and not have to do something weird to make up the damage, but I just feel SOMETHING in that general vein of thing would be helpful.

But, as I always say, AST is the Healer I play the least, so I defer to AST players for what they think a fix would be. I just feel like that would be one that could help with both the GCD Malificspam monotony AND the hyper-targeting APM in burst that drives players away from the Job.

I think AST is a lot like BLM in that people are intimidated by it PROBABLY a bit more than it deserves. I think a further thing for AST is that it's not a class fantasy that appeals to a lot of people. Some people, it absolutely is their fantasy jam, but a lot of Healers seem more into the academic Scholar, doctoral Sage, or the combination of druid, priest, and unparalleled healing/holy mage WHM (it seems to be a "project on me what you want" kind of class) than there are that are into occultic and astrology themes. There are absolutely a lot that ARE, and AST is great for them, but I feel it will always have at least some limits to its appeal - all other things being equal - just due to having what's probably the least popular class fantasy/aesthetic.

Which is another reason that I'm kind of in the "I'll defer to AST players what they want", since unless it's literally the only Healer Job still playable to me after some godsforsaken future change that I hope never happens, it would never be my main anyway.

and IIRC, AST's kit was actually the basis for the healer revamp in ShB, cause i don't think it had an AoE DoT or anything resembling one.

Agree with a lot of this post, though I'm curious about this.

Never heard this before. I always hear WHM blamed for the Healer rework in ShB, but you're saying you thin it was AST? In a way, that does make sense. WHM changed a lot into ShB (healing kit side), but AST's damage kit was the one left completely untouched (other than Gravity cast time, I guess?)

...hm. Food for thought...

[ty_taurus]

Which is another reason that I'm kind of in the "I'll defer to AST players what they want", since unless it's literally the only Healer Job still playable to me after some godsforsaken future change that I hope never happens, it would never be my main anyway.

As far as DPS vs healing vs support is concerned, AST is the healer that makes the most sense to have a playstyle that moves away from direct DPS given that it's already designed to be a buff-heavy healer and has historically had a very shallow DPS selection due to the volume of card mechanics its juggled. It's been brought up before that this doesn't resolve the issues of AST in solo content being very slow and very dull, even back during the good old days, which could be resolved with a reevaluating of how they engage with this support concept.

Personally, I'd move away from buffing Malefic through card uses specifically simply to keep pushing AST away from direct DPS as much as possible. Instead, you build stacks that you can then give to other players which detonate malefic-potency DPS as they attack. This also avoids the issue of Malefic's potency climbing to very bloated values and having a really significant crit variance issue with virtually all of AST's damage which could be a problem.

[Nizzi]

The actual issue seems to be the removal of Miasma, Miasma 2/Art of War no longer having any use (even situational) in single target fights, and Ruin 2 having a MUCH reduced presence with Broil's shorter cast time.

oGCDs don't affect GCD cadence (for obvious reasons), and since collectively everyone discounts oGCDs (no one counts Assize or using Tetra as "breaking up Glarespam", so the only time ED or the like should count is if Broil has to be substituted with Ruin 2/Miasma 2 to cast them; that substitution is the actual break in the GCD Broilspam, not the oGCD weave), isn't the actual issue.

Indeed, it seems Broil's shorter cast time and Art of War not having single target applications are actually the big changes here. Broil's shorter cast means no need to switch up spells for oGCD weaves most of the time, and slidecasting is a stronger movement utility, removing as much need for casting Ruin 2 instead of Broil. Add in Art of War not being a single target gain over Ruin 2 and you basically eliminate everything other than the two natural Bio refreshes per minute.

Huh...

SCH's Broilspam is actually worse than WHM's Glarespam?

....

Checks out. Top SCH on Proto-Carbie has 148 Broil casts (with 14 Bios, 2 Ruin IIs, and 1 Adlo GCD heal) vs the top WHM having 141 (with 15 Dias and 6 Misery just under 7 min fight, 18 Raptures and no other GCD heals). SCH uses more oGCDs, but if we're talking about the Broilspam/Glarespam, Broilspam is actually...worse.

Very true IMO, the removal of Miasma/Miasma II and now Ruin II being relegated to solely movement at a DPS loss is a huge problem for Scholar.
My thoughts on the weave windows every healer has are mixed, but they definitely damaged SCH's DPS "rotation" flow going into EW, since at least you'd hit Ruin II 3 times a minute or more because of the lack of weave windows. They didn't even consider something like making Energy Drain locked behind Ruin II as a combo of sorts to make Ruin II necessary to use or anything. It's strange but not unexpected.
Now, being optimal on SCH is just being a Broilbot - there's no break from hitting Broil outside of refreshing Bio; literally nothing you can do to escape it. Returning Miasma would really help SCH feel a bit better and give it something unique to do comparatively to other healers now. SCH needs its GCD damaging suite back; things like Shadow Flare (as cool as they are) can stay gone since they're functionally just boring fire and forget oGCDs (though they could make it a GCD again, I guess.)

Please return Miasma and Bane to Scholar, Yoshida. It's insane to me that the healer that starts as a DPS class and was originally "the DPS healer" now has the least amount of AoE options in the game (1 total) and optimal single target GCDs in the game (2 total).

[Renathras]

...

Hm...not trying to say this the wrong way, but I think it's posts like this that make me think you don't understand the way that I think.

Speaking for myself, I like the idea of buffing people, but I don't like the idea of building exploding buffs. That just seems like "complex DPS rotation with more steps that does DPS while pretending it doesn't". The kind of buffs I like are more things like Protect or Haste or Regen (using normal FF game terminology), or...well, FFXIV doesn't have many good examples of it, honestly, since most buffs are AOE "use ever 2 min on CD". But basically, if you had a selection of buffs to choose from,t hen chose from them and cast them on people whenever, maintain buffs that can be kept up 100% of the time (like Resto Druid in WoW rolling HoTs, particularly on the Tank(s)), etc. Playing a little FFXI, I kinda love using stuff like Protect and Bar-spells, even if they're infrequent. It's also enjoyable (to my old-school MMOer mindset) of buffing random people I come across (bonus points - it levels Enhancement skill anyway)

I don't think "buff" as "stack several things on someone that then explode and do damage. To me, that's no different than Solace/Rapture -> Misery, except I like those better since they seem way more intuitive than exploding buffs and have direct and generally useful effects (filling party health bars that are lowish essentially for "free" in terms of not losing DPS or whatnot for it).

Further, I don't mind dealing damage - and do so frequently - I don't like complex or convoluted DPS rotations, preferring my mental energy be focused on heals and not damage spells. Hence what I mean about I don't think you understand the way I think.

.

Anyway, as I demonstrated on the first page of this thread, WHM essentially now plays the same as it did in SB (and HW if we ignore Cleric toggling). The main difference in a GCD sense is that we need less Cure 2/Medica casts since we get those as part of our damage rotation in Solace and Rapture, so we're doing a bit less (for players trying to be skilled, ideally zero) GCD cast healing, but if you WEREN'T having to cast Cure 2/Medica before, then the rotation would have been more or less identical, you're just using Solace/Rapture in place of 1 Aero II and 2 Aero III casts per minute (note the numbers more or less shake out the same).

So WHM as it exists right now is not only more or less what it was in SB, just less rigid (the Aeros were locked by duration, Solace/Rapture can be moved anywhere within a 60 second window), it's arguably the most complex it's been from 4.0 to present.

So all this time I've suggested "leave WHM alone" is, now that I've actually broken it down in depth, functionally equivalent to "leave WHM's damage kit like SB's" as it's more or less equivalent, people just tend not to think of Solace/Rapture as Aero 2/3 replacements, but that's what they are in the rotations and how they work in optimal gameplay.

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Which really leaves us with the crux of it:

SCH very clearly took some major hits (GCD and oGCD), especially when Broil's cast time was reduced, and AST's underlying rotation isn't what changed, it's...basically everything ELSE in the Job, given its DPS kit is the only part that HASN'T changed.

...and then there's SGE...

Very true IMO, the removal of Miasma/Miasma II and now Ruin II being relegated to solely movement at a DPS loss is a huge problem for Scholar.
My thoughts on the weave windows every healer has are mixed, but they definitely damaged SCH's DPS "rotation" flow going into EW, since at least you'd hit Ruin II 3 times a minute or more because of the lack of weave windows. They didn't even consider something like making Energy Drain locked behind Ruin II as a combo of sorts to make Ruin II necessary to use or anything. It's strange but not unexpected.
Now, being optimal on SCH is just being a Broilbot - there's no break from hitting Broil outside of refreshing Bio; literally nothing you can do to escape it. Returning Miasma would really help SCH feel a bit better and give it something unique to do comparatively to other healers now. SCH needs its GCD damaging suite back; things like Shadow Flare (as cool as they are) can stay gone since they're functionally just boring fire and forget oGCDs (though they could make it a GCD again, I guess.)

Please return Miasma and Bane to Scholar, Yoshida. It's insane to me that the healer that starts as a DPS class and was originally "the DPS healer" now has the least amount of AoE options in the game (1 total) and optimal single target GCDs in the game (2 total).

Agreed.

Thank you for this post!

It's...so weird having all of you agree with me on things (more or less), but kinda nice.

I honestly didn't really think about HOW MUCH the Broil cast time changed SCH. I played SCH (decently enough) in ShB, and I used Ruin 2 and stuff, but I guess it just didn't occur to me how often Ruin 2 WAS used for weaves that got removed with Broil having a 1.5 sec cast. Like...you don't think about it, since I guess we all think of Ruin 2 as "movement tool", but when you think of it as "weave tool for a Job that has tons of oGCDs", suddenly relegating it to movement only exposes just HOW BIG of a change that was. And then looking at the fact WHM still has Afflatus abilities to at least mimic the lost DoT refreshes, SCH has none, and that SCH casts more Broil IV in current fights than WHM casts Glare...and it's kind of eye opening.

Somehow, I thought WHM was the worst offender here. But by the numbers and looking at actual logs...I now see it's actually SCHOLAR that has it the worst.

I'm not even sure quite what to think of that...

[ty_taurus]

Speaking for myself, I like the idea of buffing people, but I don't like the idea of building exploding buffs.

I'm talking along the assumption that you would prefer that a healer spend as little time as possible on attacking, which if that's incorrect, then by all means correct me on that. And I understand the mentality of wanting to make decisions based on support and not based on damage. The tricky aspect about that point in particular is priority in this game is determined by how much you ultimately contribute to the fight per cast, and DPS is ultimately what determines which action is the "right" action, even when you're restoring HP. With that in mind, creating a support system that hides that healer's DPS output allows the job design to thrive in an environment where DPS is largely expected, because you can approach the support and recovery tools as support and recovery while the damage that is expected of your job is accomplished for you simply by engaging with those support tools.

When I talked about building and detonating an engine, I meant figuratively. Here's a very light overview of where I'm thinking on AST in this regard. Draw and Play are GCD actions. You can draw up to 3 cards and play them as you hold them. They apply effects like a 5% DPS buff, a 5% crit buff... all simple buffs, but you can only apply each card to one person at a time. Two people cannot have balance, and one person cannot have more than 1 card other than you (for soloing). These effects do not immediately occur once you play the card. Instead, you have another spell that causes all of your cards to activate at once, applying their effects to whom you played them on. You also have your buff window spell that can activate the card on one person and extend the effect to the whole party. Every one of these actions generates a star that will attack an enemy for malefic potency damage when you activate a specific OGCD action on yourself or an ally.

So it's not exploding a DPS bomb on enemies, but rather setting up your buff skill to be used at intervals after you've played your hand. Then you reshuffle your cards and start again.

In solo, what I meant by detonating these buffs in small bursts is you'd play a bunch of cards on yourself, activate them, use your OGCD ability, then hit Malefic several times to detonate all your stars and start over. But outside of soloing, Malefic use would be very minimal. There are other tools I have in mind, but that's the core of what I'm bringing up.

I know you've stated you're content with a 1 button DPS healer that just hits that one spell and that's it, but I was under the impression that if there was a healer that didn't have to DPS very much at all, that would be preferable for you.

[Silver-Strider]

I'm just curious what "interesting abilities that enable choice" you think WHM had in HW that was a step up from ARR...?

I won't speak for Semirhage but I do want to point out Aero 1,2,3 were all available for WHM during Heavensward. There was also the interaction between Cleric Stance and Assize that determined how potent the skill was in terms of healing/damage as well. Minor things to be sure but still an improvement to ARR.