AST - Making an Easy Healer

**Renathras** · 03-01-2023 04:02 PM

For...reasons that I don't at all understand, some people seem dead set against WHM being "the easy healer" in any proposed rework, wanting it to join SCH and SGE in having an involved rotation ranging somewhere between BLM and NIN (I kid...but not by much), and with AST - the hardest Healer in the game at present - somehow being the "easy/baby healer".

...so this got me to thinking: What changes WOULD AST need to be brought to the level that WHM is right now?

A lot.

The answer is "A lot".

[NOTE FOR THE DENSE: This is not a serious proposal, just noting how much would have to be changed to make this work.]

EDIT: Since that's not enough, !!!DISCLAIMER!!!:

For those who didn't read the disclaimer:

There's been ongoing discussion about what to do with Healers as a role/whole. After a lot of talking and analysis, most everyone agrees that SCH and AST are in a bad spot. WHM and SGE are much more controversial, as they have fans in their present condition (where SGE and AST fans even think they need some changes)

Discussion has also been that Healing is an odd role where the better you get at your Job and the better your party/other players get at encounter mechanics and the more gear you all have, the less you need to do as a Healer in a given encounter. This has been framed as "The better you get at being a Healer, the less you have to actually heal, leaving you to spam your DPS 'rotation' which is mostly 2 buttons." oGCD healing, in particular, is so powerful and the CDs relatively short that almost all healing can be covered with no GCD healing, making our GCD heals vestigial and leading to DoT(Dia, Biolysis, Combust, Eukrasian Dosis) + Spamnuke (Glare, Broil, Malific, Dosis), with just a few minor deviations like Plegma or Afflatus spells.

One solution that has been proposed is to give all the Healers involved DPS rotations like Jobs like BLM have. But there are many people that play Healers because they DON'T like DPS rotations and do not find them an enjoyable reward for getting better at healing. Detractors say this would lead to an exodus of Healers who don't like damage dealing rotations, while proponents of the plan insist everyone would like more complex damage rotations on Healers, that FFXIV is more of an ARPG at this point anyway and everyone needs to accept that (despite FFXIV's history to the contrary), that the number of people leaving the role would probably be less than new people attracted to it, and that if you only do MSQ and never touch Extremes, Savages, Ultimates, Deep Dungeons, or basically any other non-MSQ content, you don't NEED to play at a high level so you could ignore those extra abilities if you just...don't clear any content. (They seem to think this is a good argument in favor for some reason...) They don't mind some Healer Jobs having a low skill floor, but they want them all to have a high skill ceiling, so no WAR or SMN equivalents that are both easy to learn and easy to master would exist under their system.

Another solution that has been proposed is to make Healing harder/more demanding, such that encounters match our healing tools. But this solution has detractors from people that don't EXACTLY like healing; they play Healers because they like playing a support caster role, which was epitomized by ARR/HW SCH which was very damage focused while supplying substantial support healing and mitigation between Lustrate - then a percentage heal unaffected by Cleric Stance - and Faerie abilities, and they enjoyed that playstyle and would like a return to it. The detractors point to a decline in Healers in 6.2/3 when P5-8S were released with harder healing, and state that reworking past encounters through the game to accommodate this (so that they aren't bored when doing old content) would require considerable Dev resources. Further, it would require the playerbase to shift their collective mindset away from doing damage being more important than anything else, and they note that the Devs have relatively little power to quickly shift overall player mindsets, and point to things like the removal of Energy Drain and P5S's early tier being met with criticism.

Still others find Healing fun and engaging as it is and enjoy it as it is, and want no changes made at all, or only very minor changes. Most of these people play the game and don't come to forums, though, so are not well represented, but everyone kind of accepts they exist, but think they'd simply be okay with whatever changes were made.

A fourth, compromise position has emerged, which suggests to change SOME of the Healer Jobs while leaving SOME the same. Namely, to restore SCH's SB era damage abilities, AST's SB era Card abilities (a novel suggestion is to do this as "Minor Arcana" for the utility Cards like defense boost or MP regen such that they aren't competing with The Balance), to give SGE a bit more of a DPS rotation akin to SMN or RDM's filler rotations, and to leave WHM largely as it is (giving it a shorter CD mitigation like adding a damage reduction to Plenary Indulgence and allow it's cast time GCD heals to also nourish the Blood Lily so they are actual choices and not DPS losses). In this way, all camps could be satisfied. Those wanting more downtime engagement have SCH and SGE depending on if they like a more managing things like DoTs and CDs (SCH) or more direct rotation (SGE) [one could think of this as how Ranged have BRD and MCH to appeal to the two player types], while those that prefer buffing their allies in interesting ways have AST, and those that prefer a straightforward healing model of strong and direct heals and simplistic downtime rotations have WHM. All of the different camps would have their needs met...well, other than they might feel limited to only one Job in the Role. But right now, several camps have NO Job in the role that satisfies them, so it would still probably be an improvement.

Proponents of this last model point to the other roles in the game and have each have a lot of Job diversity that appeal to different player types, such as WAR existing as an easy to learn and master Tank vs GNB as a more involved one or DRK as a busy during burst but simple during filler. Detractors of this compromise position dislike it because some of the Jobs wouldn't be tailored to their preferred style, and they think no one would want to play them anyway, and they believe if they find them boring, everyone would. Further, they tend to have a favorite Job, and insist that any Job "left the same" would either need to be a new Job (but not SGE, they insist, as it needs to be changed as well, despite having this playstyle for its entire existence in the game...) or some Job other than WHM (for those ones that love WHM and want IT to get the complex damage rotation treatment). The detractors genuinely believe that Healers as they are today are terribly unfun and that leaving any as they are would be a travesty and detrimental to players of that Job, and have tried convincing proponents of this idea that maybe they would just prefer a different Job other than WHM, for example, a Job that spent its downtime buffing instead of dealing damage.

...it was in that last vein that I wrote this thread, to see HOW AST would need to be changed to make it the desired class for such people instead of WHM and why that makes it not the logical choice for "leave it mostly alone" if this plan was implemented.

As such, this was NOT a proposal for how AST should be changed. Rather, this was showing how AST would have to be changed to make it the option rather than WHM.

Though as this led to confusion, I may attempt to use a different name to really consider the thought experiment more fully to its natural conclusion.

.

The first step would be removing Cards - yes, AST's identity - almost entirely. The "Cards" would be made into a version of the PvP Cards, except it would just be one Card with a 25y radius that gives a flat damage increase to the party. Maybe not even damage. Maybe it would be healing. Kinda like how Asylum works? Hm...will have to consider that. There would be no seals, no different symbols (or they'd be only cosmetic if so), it would just be Draw/Play, party gets AOE buff. Oh, and Play also, within that 25y, does 2 Malific's worth of damage.

Because Draw and Play are now GCDs for ease of use, and by Play being an AOE and doing 2 Malific's worth of damage, it makes it damage neutral like Lilies. It might also do an AOE heal, but I'm undecided on that. It probably should, kinda like Afflatus Rapture does.

The second change would be decreasing its oGCD kit and making any that remain into straightforward, WHM-like effects. Essential Dignity would just be a flat 900 potency heal with no scaling effect. Undraw and Redraw are removed, because there's only one Card and you're always playing it when it's up. Synastry is now an oGCD that fully heals the target party member. No weird heal echo effect. It's just Benediction now. Divination is removed. Astrodyne is removed.

Collective Unconscious...okay, that one can stay. Celestial Opposition is fine, but we could just remove it, I guess...? Kinda 50/50 on that one, as it IS straightforward, but WHM doesn't have a oGCD party heal that's used as such (Assize is used for damage).

Earthly Star needs some serious changing. It's not ground targeted anymore, and there's no timer effect. It just pops for 720 potency healing instantly. Oh, wait, I got it! We need a Cure 3. Earthly Star is now our Cure 3. 720 potency, 1500 MP cost, 2 sec cast time, no CD. There, fixed it!

Minor Arcana either no longer exists or has been replaced with Crown Royalty which does both the heal and damage effect at once on a 40 sec CD (Assize). Oh, but we have Celestial Opposition for Assize (just no damage, yay?), so let's just dump Minor Arcana entirely. Minor Arcana is removed.

Celestial Intersection...meh, it's a better Benison, it can stay, too.

Horoscope changes to where any GCD heal cast over the next 10 seconds triggers the heals.

Neutral Sect still seems unnecessarily not "baby healer", but I can't think of what to change it to, so it can stay, I guess. Same with Macrocosmos. I guess it's KINDA like Lilybell anyway.

Exaltation is easy enough, so it can stay.

And, obviously, Malific, Combust, and Gravity can stay.

Oh, and obviously the GCD heals can stay, except Benefic 1 just upgrades to Benefic 2 because...why is Benefic 1 even in the game at this point? Lower Benefic 2's MP cost to 400 and call it a straight upgrade.

.

So, what do we end up with?

The same GCD heals as now with Earthly Star added as Cure 3, and the same three GCD damage spells. Collective Unconscious, Celestial Opposition, Celestial Intersection, Neutral Sect, Exaltation, and Macrocosmos will also stay as they are now.

Cards are a single card (let's make it the Ewer icon just to confuse people), it's AOE, does damage and buffing(?)/healing, and is damage neutral. Draw/Play are GCDs, but instant and damage neutral and with no need for a target since it's a big AOE.

Essential Dignity is now Tetra, Horoscope is now Plenary Indulgence (and works on single target spells, bonus!), Synastry is Benediction. And I guess Lightspeed is KINDA Presence of Mind (make it MP free and we can mark off Thin Air while we're at it).

Divination, Astrodyne, Undraw, Redraw, Minor Arcana, Lord of Crowns, Lady of Crowns, and every Arcana that isn't the one we choose to keep (Ewer!) are all removed.

Benefic 2, Aspected Benefic, Holos, Aspected Holos, Earthly Star (Cure 3), Fall Malific, Combust III, Gravity II, Draw/Play, Collective Unconscious, Celestial Opposition, Celestial Intersection, Neutral Sect, Exaltation, Macrocosmos, Essential Dignity, Horoscope, Synastry, and Lightspeed.

Total number of Hotbar slots: 19 (plus 6 for role = 25, so just about what WHM has now; we can keep Benefic 1 in if we're desperate for more, I guess?)

Oh!

And Fall Malific needs an animation change. All the other Healers get to shoot something at the boss, but Malific, I can't even see it. Whatever the animation is, it's lost in the mass of party spell effects. That's no good. Give it Ruin 2's visual effect and we'll be good, though. Maybe make it white instead? Come to think of it, what's Malific 1's animation...? Even that seems more exciting than Fall Malific...

.

If we do all of that...then sure, make WHM a galaxy brain Healer as nerfed as the other three, and AST can remain as the one Healer that actually works. I could get behind that.

..........or we could leave WHM alone. /shrug

.

Though I'm gonna laugh SO HARD if they actually made the 7.0 rework this. Because I would mostly be overtaken by the absurdity of it...

**Recon1o6** · 03-01-2023 05:16 PM

Renathras. You are missing the point of every whm main current and former who does not want it being left behind as you propose continuously.
If there is any healer that should be easy (IE low skill floor and ceiling and no kit interactivity) its sage as it was designed for EW's super low requirements

The other 3 healers had history and dedicated playstyles with skill ceilings that should be returned and whm was one of them. Sage is currently stealing sch and noct ast's playstyles. It has yet to carve out a niche for itself

that being said- interesting thought experiment and one that i would not be surprised to see happen at this point

**ty_taurus** · 03-01-2023 08:29 PM

Originally Posted by Recon1o6

If there is any healer that should be easy (IE low skill floor and ceiling and no kit interactivity) its sage as it was designed for EW's super low requirements

I disagree with this point. From a lore standpoint, Sage is supposed to be one of if not the most challenging disciplines that we know of currently. From a gameplay standpoint, a player is required to have reached level 70 to unlock the job, and while that doesn't mean that much in practice, it does make it the least accessible to a new healer. Sage should be a lot like Gunbreaker--effective but challenging to pull off correctly. It's not just that it has a busy DPS rotation, Gunbreaker's demand for weaving makes it harder to properly position bosses, and that's an element of nuance that Gunbreaker players take pride in mastering. Perhaps that requires slashing off its Scholar imitation buttons or changing them to work differently.

I definitely feel that Astrologian should be the healer to appeal to players that don't like DPS healers, but I don't think that means it needs to be simple or the easiest to play either, and it still needs to have a solid answer to solo play.

White Mage, being immediately accessible to a new player, should be the most approachable healer. That said, I also stand vehemently against the idea that it's fine as-is, and needs to have room to optimize, but should also be forgiving.

**Renathras** · 03-01-2023 09:51 PM

Originally Posted by Recon1o6

...

I'm not so much "missing the point" as I disagree on what "left behind" means. I think WHM is the only Healer right now that is more or less actually working as it is and makes the most sense to stay fun (I see the proposed changes as un-fun, not as an improvement, see), and want it to stay good instead of getting worse.

However, I also am open to alternatives.

So this thought experiment was to explore what all would have to be changed to AST before "leave it alone" would be the option.

Though I will say this:

The SECOND closest Job I'd say as the "leave it alone" option would be SGE. The problem is SGE doesn't have the option to start at level 1 for new players...if it somehow had the option to start at level 1 or level 70, though? It would probably be the most sensible option, but it would need its kit altered to be a bit more straightforward. It's easy once you get it (right now, I find it as easy to play as WHM), but it doesn't FEEL easy to most anyone picking it up for the first time, especially new Healers. That said, if it could be someone's class pick from level 1 for a new character, it'd probably instantly become the most played Healer, lol

Oh, and I will contest the WHM history point:

As demonstrated in the "Healers Then And Now" thread, WHM is about the same relative level if skill/difficulty/kit complexity now as it was in 4.0 and ARGUABLY 3.0/2.0 outside of Cleric.

Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I definitely feel that Astrologian should be the healer to appeal to players that don't like DPS healers, but I don't think that means it needs to be simple or the easiest to play either, and it still needs to have a solid answer to solo play.

White Mage, being immediately accessible to a new player, should be the most approachable healer. That said, I also stand vehemently against the idea that it's fine as-is, and needs to have room to optimize, but should also be forgiving.

I do agree with the lore argument.

I'd even agree with AST being an appealing option - TO THOSE WHO LIKE COMPLEXITY THAT ISN'T DAMAGE RELATED.

That doesn't make AST a good beginner option, nor does it make it what should appeal to players that don't like DPS Healers.

I've also yet to see a good argument why WHM isn't good as it is that doesn't amount to "it's boring", which is a subjective argument; and ignores that objectively WHM has the most going on in GCD terms aside from MAYBE SGE, and that WHM has the most complicated kit its had over all of FFXIV's history aside from Cleric toggling, which we generally all agree isn't coming back. It doesn't really NEED much else other than a second, shorter CD mitigation.

Conversely, making any other Healer (aside from SGE) work on that level would be a tall lift, which is why I feel SGE and AST (not as presented in this thread; just in general) both need reworks of some kind. SGE is salvageable, but would need some changes.

Alone among the Healers could current WHM be ported into 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, or 6.0 and work (and actually be an improvement over 4.X, 5.X, and 6.0 itself, and probably over 3.X and 2.X)

That's why I don't think it needs any change other than the mitigation one, making GCD heals generate Blood Lily, and probably merging Cure 1 into Cure 2.

.

Though given this thread, it's got me thinking what a similar thought experiment would be for SCH, or in reverse for WHM/SGE - what it would take to make them "complex" on the AST level......I'll have to give those some thought.

**Semirhage** · 03-01-2023 10:25 PM

Because "111111111 is boring" is about as close as you can get to a subjective argument crossing over into objective? The only way to make a class more boring is to have it auto-cast Assize every 2.5 seconds with no input from the player.

**UkcsAlias** · 03-01-2023 10:48 PM

Originally Posted by Semirhage

Because "111111111 is boring" is about as close as you can get to a subjective argument crossing over into objective?

The main reason why 1111 is constantly being mentioned, is because the healing requirements themselve are quite often lacking. Its supposed to be a thing you can do while there is nothing else to do, but this ended up being 80% of the time. Reducing that time actualy would do a lot already.

But to keep healing approachable, increasing the healing requirement would backfire. It would only hurt players that want to start healing because they will be called things like trash, and on that make the job even less popular to play. Thats why people want that 1111 to change to a 123123 to at least make that part less dull.

In a good system, 1111 would not be an issue, since you are too often busy doing the other tasks, but FF is simply not designed to be like that. And changing that now is far too much work and creates new conflicts again (you dont want someone that has to start a lvl79 dungeon to have a near full set of lvl77 gear, as thats just needlessly slowing them down, or forcing them to spend too much). Still, it would be nice if older MSQ parts would scale linearly towards the next set of tomestone gear instead of having the current ilvl spike, but i dont think you want to rework nearly all the dungeons in the game.

**Semirhage** · 03-01-2023 11:00 PM

Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

The main reason why 1111 is constantly being mentioned, is because the healing requirements themselve are quite often lacking. Its supposed to be a thing you can do while there is nothing else to do, but this ended up being 80% of the time. Reducing that time actualy would do a lot already.

But to keep healing approachable, increasing the healing requirement would backfire. It would only hurt players that want to start healing because they will be called things like trash, and on that make the job even less popular to play. Thats why people want that 1111 to change to a 123123 to at least make that part less dull.

In a good system, 1111 would not be an issue, since you are too often busy doing the other tasks, but FF is simply not designed to be like that. And changing that now is far too much work and creates new conflicts again (you dont want someone that has to start a lvl79 dungeon to have a near full set of lvl77 gear, as thats just needlessly slowing them down, or forcing them to spend too much). Still, it would be nice if older MSQ parts would scale linearly towards the next set of tomestone gear instead of having the current ilvl spike, but i dont think you want to rework nearly all the dungeons in the game.

First, nobody who seriously approaches healing reworks wants "123123". That's not meaningful interaction. It's 1111111 with a macro. Second, varying skill levels exist between players. When one person finds content with "perfectly tuned healing, barely have any time to cast damage spells at all!", you are definitely going to find people still bashing their heads on their desks, pressing 1 over and over and over again, wanting the pain to end. And thirdly, the healing isn't all that interesting either. What little interaction exists in the healing kits is relatively shallow. Buttons do exactly what they say on the description and no more, or the ones that reward you with gauge all give you the exact same reward. Again, even if you fix these, your reward for playing well is...more time to 1111111.

I've observed this vehement opposition to improving downtime for years. There is always Sylphie reasoning behind it. Al. Ways. Whether it's "I don't LIKE damage rotations! 1111111 is FUN!" or "if you added choices to downtime you would SCARE NEWBIES! Doing damage is SCARY!" It's always there. I agree that in a well-designed system, 1111 wouldn't be as much of a problem. But then again, I've also played games with more healing uptime than FF14 has ever dreamed of outside Ultimates, and somehow still the healers had more to do than spam one spell over and over and over and over and over again with an occasional poke at a different one once per minute.

**IDontPetLalas** · 03-02-2023 12:49 AM

If anyone read beyond "note for the dense" then that's time in your life that sadly will never be recovered. Fortunately I don't believe the developers will actually have this forwarded to them.

**ForsakenRoe** · 03-02-2023 04:20 AM

Another day, another thinly veiled 'you think you know what is best for healers but actually it is I who knows best' thread

Originally Posted by Renathras

Alone among the Healers could current WHM be ported into 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, or 6.0 and work (and actually be an improvement over 4.X, 5.X, and 6.0 itself, and probably over 3.X and 2.X)

A DPS class that had a trait that said 'your autoattack potency is multiplied by 10' with no actual actions would 'work'. It'd also be boring beyond belief to play, if 'just autoattacking' can even be considered 'playing the game'. We don't talk about what 'works' or doesn't, because if it doesn't 'work' it doesn't even reach the live game. What we talk about is what is 'fun' to us, and every one of these threads you make that tries to tell us that you know what is best and we don't are getting tiresome. Yeh, current WHM would fit if it were backported to previous expansions. That doesn't tell me that WHM is good right now. It just tells me that however bad it is atm, it was worse before. It tells me that the improvements to Lilies made in SHB, and then again in EW, should have been how SB launched, and then SHB would have built upon THAT, and EW upon THAT, instead of the mad scramble to salvage

I thought we were getting somewhere, finding consensus on some things. Instead we're back to the adversarial vibes

**Renathras** · 03-02-2023 12:17 PM

Originally Posted by Semirhage

...

"boring" is a subjective term, not an objective one. So yes, that would be subjective, but not objective.

Also, as discussed in the "Healers Then And Now" thread, which I know you at least have looked at, WHM has the LEAST 11111 rotation out of all of the Healers. SCH uses Broil and AST Malific more than WHM uses Glare in a given fight, ENTIRELY because WHM uses Lilies which are GCDs, breaking up that spam. SCH in theory has Ruin 2, but isn't often pressed to use it. AST has no other GCD attacks besides Malific/Combust/Gravity. It is actually the 11111 Healer, not WHM. Also, as far as I can tell, SGE uses more or less the same number of Dosis as WHM uses Glare, or slightly less.

That is, you may complain that all the Healers are having this issue, but OBJECTIVELY, both considering CDs and looking at actual logs, WHM is the LEAST at it.

Those are objective statements. WHM uses the least Glarespam of all the Healers' Nukespams, WHM has the most non-nuke commonly used GCDs (that is, GCDs WHMs routinely have in their rotation which are NOT their nukespam are more than their three peers), and this is both true based on CDs (Lilies have a shorter CD than Plegma added to Pneuma) and general use (Ruin 2 is rarely used outside of movement since Broil IV can weave; Toxicon in practice isn't used enough for SGE to make up the deficit in Plegma+Pneuma vs Lilies). Those are objective statements, not subjective opinions.

Also:

You hate it when people say you aren't a "real healer". It's well passed time you stop calling people "Sylphie".

Not everyone likes what you do. Guess what? That's life. Calling people Sylphie and not accepting that isn't you being better than them, it's immaturity.

What should be done about it would be a subjective position, but those statements themselves are factual. "it's boring" is not. A lot of people consider things like reading boring or practicing music. Clearly such feelings are not universal nor are they objective.

Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

...

I understand the desire, which is why I'm a proponent of changing some - just not ALL - of the Healers to have a more complex downtime rotation so that people that WANT ONE have the option to engage in one, and people that DO NOT have the option not to.

Though I disagree that more healing would backfire. More healing was done in the past in an era of the game that people now saying we can't have more healing enjoyed. Moreover, casual players already see healing that way, and in some cases are right - the 81 and 83 dungeons in EW were healing intensive vs the kits and ilevel people had doing them. Further, it's hardly an impossible ask. They did it in P5-8S. And the people complaining that Healing is too easy complained that Healing is too hard. Which begs the question.......

Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

If anyone read beyond "note for the dense" then that's time in your life that sadly will never be recovered. Fortunately I don't believe the developers will actually have this forwarded to them.

(Clearly from someone who didn't read the note itself, because if she had, she wouldn't have posted this. Shhhh...don't tell her.)

.