Healer Suggestions Megathread

[Katish]

Healing styles would be something more like:
WHM burst healer, AST regen healer, SCH mitigation healer, SGE shield healer.

If we're taking nominations for healing styles I would rather AST take the stance of a compile healer where more of its skills are similar to its level 90 skill macrocosmos, if astro were purely a regen healer, if they were playing into their cards and not paying attention, it could be "the end (tm)". But were it a compile healer its heals would be preliminary and then they could focus on their card system without worrying or darting an eye on someone's health bar (maybe even giving the excuse to expand the card system given they'd be less focused on healing). Of course these skills would be weaker in comparison to macrocosmos, where macrocosmos has no limit these new skills (or reworked skills) could have a hard limit.

[Aravell]

If we're taking nominations for healing styles I would rather AST take the stance of a compile healer where more of its skills are similar to its level 90 skill macrocosmos, if astro were purely a regen healer, if they were playing into their cards and not paying attention, it could be "the end (tm)". But were it a compile healer its heals would be preliminary and then they could focus on their card system without worrying or darting an eye on someone's health bar (maybe even giving the excuse to expand the card system given they'd be less focused on healing). Of course these skills would be weaker in comparison to macrocosmos, where macrocosmos has no limit these new skills (or reworked skills) could have a hard limit.

I don't see why it has to be an "either or". Compilation heals can work very well with regens, such as compiling damage received and returning some of the HP lost via a regen (like Macrocosmos but a HoT). Could also compile all regens together into a burst heal. I've always supported AST going more into the time and fates aspect, HoTs can be part of the time mage aspect and compilation healing can be like changing fate.

Which makes me wonder, what if they change Divination to be a party-wide Wildfire instead of a plain damage boost? Just a compilation of all damage done by the entire party leading to a big boom, it would probably be weaker in a light party, but so is current Divination.

[Katish]

I don't see why it has to be an "either or". Compilation heals can work very well with regens, such as compiling damage received and returning some of the HP lost via a regen (like Macrocosmos but a HoT). Could also compile all regens together into a burst heal. I've always supported AST going more into the time and fates aspect, HoTs can be part of the time mage aspect and compilation healing can be like changing fate.

Which makes me wonder, what if they change Divination to be a party-wide Wildfire instead of a plain damage boost? Just a compilation of all damage done by the entire party leading to a big boom, it would probably be weaker in a light party, but so is current Divination.

I feel as the difference would be in the aesthetics if we played both, regens imo don't seem very astro-y but rewinding time (rewinding hp lost) definitely does and works with what could be a good change for them if worked correctly. Regens just remind me of white magic through and through. Astrologians according to lore do not use white magic and the healing they do use is very definitely from what people are used to seeing on a world level. (So having the regens already is kind of weird because it's basically white magic lel).

[Aravell]

I feel as the difference would be in the aesthetics if we played both, regens imo don't seem very astro-y but rewinding time (rewinding hp lost) definitely does and works with what could be a good change for them if worked correctly. Regens just remind me of white magic through and through. Astro does not use white magic.

Regeneration as a concept can also be part of time magic, such as accelerating the natural recovery of the body, rewinding the damage done to the body slowly, it can be designed to fit into the aesthetics. If I recall correctly, in one of the AST job quests, the knight you casted Aspected Benefic on commented that it looks like his wounds are disappearing, like he never went into combat in the first place, it's already been linked to time magic in the lore.

EDIT: In regards to a healer that's entirely built around compilation effects, I can see it coming across some issues. Like being completely incapable of healing HP% damage, because the game doesn't actually do any damage to you in those cases, they simply remove the HP, so compilation would result in 0. As interesting as it would be, it would need a few contingency buttons to actually work in practice.

[Katish]

Regeneration as a concept can also be part of time magic, such as accelerating the natural recovery of the body, rewinding the damage done to the body slowly, it can be designed to fit into the aesthetics. If I recall correctly, in one of the AST job quests, the knight you casted Aspected Benefic on commented that it looks like his wounds are disappearing, like he never went into combat in the first place, it's already been linked to time magic in the lore.

Disappearing is not regenerating (regening), that's rewinding (compiling). Although I guess the lore has never delve that deep into the healer role before Ig(?)

[Aravell]

Disappearing is not regenerating (regening), that's rewinding (compiling). Although I guess the lore has never delve that deep into the healer role before Ig(?)

I'm not equating the two, I'm saying you can use time to achieve both effects.

Accelerating time so your wounds recover naturally at an accelerated rate.
or
Rewinding time so those wounds never happened in the first place.

[Katish]

I'm not equating the two, I'm saying you can use time to achieve both effects.

Accelerating time so your wounds recover naturally at an accelerated rate.
or
Rewinding time so those wounds never happened in the first place.

Yeah I get that, the first ones still seems more white magicky to me though given regen takes that spot and has been a staple in lots of ff titles and would be weird without it. As Astro is its own identity and has no like-identity it shouldn't be limited to what normal healing looks like anyhow, where the second option would work for it, if the job were designed as such. (Given it's not coming out of nowhere and is already built into the job in Macrocosmos)

[fulminating]

Ast’s identity is time mage as performed through the medium of yugio. And some tarot thrown in, which is basically a time magic weather forecast. Time can age the wound in either direction to heal it, I have a vague memory of an ast quest where some knights got beaten up by a dragon and that was the explanation offered?

[Icecylee]

Yeah I get that, the first ones still seems more white magicky to me though given regen takes that spot and has been a staple in lots of ff titles and would be weird without it.

Regen is actually classically a Time spell and not a White one, fwiw.

[TheDustyOne]

Depends on the FF game, 5 has it classified as Time magic, while the rest of the main series classes it as White. Bravely Default is the only other game that classes Regen as Time magic. Even Tactics and XII put it as a White magic spell, can't speak for Tactics Advance though.

That said, even just one game is still precedent for time-based jobs to have a regen, and feels thematically appropriate as something for a time-based mage to manipulate. It just needs some more interesting interactions than simply healing over time, like being able to extend the HoT, accelerate it, rewind it, etc.