Dawntrail Healer Change Predicitons

[Raikai]

My prediction is that part the AST rework will make either Draw or Play (or both?) a GCD, to alleviate the hectic burst windows, much like they did with Ninja's mudras.

[Supersnow845]

My prediction is that part the AST rework will make either Draw or Play (or both?) a GCD, to alleviate the hectic burst windows, much like they did with Ninja's mudras.

I actually wouldn’t be terribly opposed to that, but I think that’s because I find AST’s horrible APM not a form of skill expression but just an annoyance, AST having draw and play as oGCD’s feels like if DNC had reverse fountainfall and bloodshower as oGCD’s, slightly slowing down the job without changing the expression of knowing who to card and when wouldn’t be the worst thing in my mind

[Shurrikhan]

Trying to revive SB lily design is a bold decision but I can’t say I actively hate it

More as a pretty insignificant bonus, outside of now entering combat with 3 charges instead of 0.

The main thing was to let the mobility bonus of Lilies linger a little bit and to remove any arbitrary limits on what healing actions they could be spent on while saving button count for the effort. If Lilies had been left the same, Thin Air would still have been the obvious place from which to add a bit more mobility to WHM's kit. So I figured I may as well bundle them together.

Again, not ideal, but a small improvement despite remaining dev-realistic.

Something I desperately want that I think could actually be added because it doesn’t require changing philosophy is please give WHM back its CNJ roots, I’m so sick of white sparkly stuff, holy is already the light spell, why did we have to lose both our earth spells and our air spells

Return glare to stone and dia to aero pls

Even if you do nothing to actually fix WHM pls do that

I'd love this.

...Luckily, in the meantime, there may or may not be *cough* mods *cough* that do exactly that, visually speaking.

(The Thin Air absorption of the Lily mechanic, even, was just the Blessing of Wind mechanic I had planned for a more ambitious Elements-centered rework, but with the offensive benefits swapped over to Blood Lily.)

[PercibelTheren]

My prediction is that part the AST rework will make either Draw or Play (or both?) a GCD, to alleviate the hectic burst windows, much like they did with Ninja's mudras.

I'm seriously hoping it's not that. I like AST specifically because it has something other than standing around to do during OGCDs.

[Shurrikhan]

My prediction is that part the AST rework will make either Draw or Play (or both?) a GCD, to alleviate the hectic burst windows, much like they did with Ninja's mudras.

As much as I hated the GCD-ification of NIN Mudras, especially since the fix actually requested was just to stop adding players' roundtrip ping to their uptime costs from oGCDs (an entirely unnecessary design decision)... I wouldn't particularly mind this... buuuuttt...

Consider: Fall Malefic does 325 relative potency at present (250 raw, increased by 30% by Maim and Mend II). At the present 6% bonus, the ally would have to deal 5417 relative potency in 15 seconds for using that Card not to be a damage loss.

Now that Cards wouldn't be free extra rDPS, the buff and duration would have to be hugely increased to allow AST to still use their Cards at all.

That in turn means that AST's total DPS is going to be that much more dependent on having perfect Card targets. I'm not opposed to that, but it can be a feels-bad for many (especially, a good and well-geared AST in a bad and/or poorly-geared party), especially if you don't bring back the ability to spend Cards on direct attacks instead (a la SB Lord of Crowns).

I imagine you'd want to tune this so that even the damage between bursts is still worth using Cards on? In that case, you're frequently looking at as little as ~3300 relative potency done in 15 seconds at level 90.

Let's call the breaking point... 3000 relative potency (from someone of the same ilvl) to leave a tiny bit of safety margin and allow it to be used on tanks at least conditionally. That'd put us at an almost 11% damage modifier required.

Or we could that up to 12% for a prettier value and to be more certain the Cards will be worth it, and we can tune Malefic and Combust accordingly for rDPS parity afterwards, though then we'd really be accentuating those burst damage differences and exploiter advantage (which we been accounting for as much as we should in discourse, especially with aDPS removing all single-target buffs because of their winner-takes-all nature making them difficult to draw conclusions from about job performance gaps).

Alternatively, we can do 9% for 20 seconds, smoothing out those advantages a bit to make balance easier, but also obviously making the benefit less exciting to play around.

Tl;dr: We can do that, but we'd need to double the Cards' effect to make them not an rDPS loss (i.e., to not be trap).

[Aravell]

My prediction is that part the AST rework will make either Draw or Play (or both?) a GCD, to alleviate the hectic burst windows, much like they did with Ninja's mudras.

I would hope not, part of what I enjoy about AST is the weaving gameplay. There are other ways they could fix AST without slowing down the gameplay.

[UkcsAlias]

My biggest hope is getting a damage ability change.

The 1 button now becomes a condensed chain on its own (a 3 button combo with scaling potencies - unlocked at for example lvl 91 and 97), while initialy not changing anything gameplay wise. Later on (lvl 100) you get a new damage ability which activates upon using the 3rd ability in the chain. Providing a little variety similar to archer.

This chaining on that then has some varieties acros the classes (SGE for example also granting a heal through the trait in it, WHM granting a freecure). And it doesnt reset upon using other abilities.

And with that, i also hope they are finaly going to get rid of cure 1 and rework that to cure 2 completely. Also condensing chains in them if needed. (it realy doesnt matter if cure1 requires 700 mana in low level duties, so the traitwise upgrading will be fine then)

But yeah... thats hoping.

[fulminating]

Could they put faerie hp bars back or return efae so dt is used on more than just adlo?

[elioaiko]

please give WHM back its CNJ roots

Because they will eventually give the new caster dps the "nature" theme or some other healer that "druid" style.

As for the post itself.....

I have zero expectations. Many of us have been around enough to know that the devs have absolutely no clue on where to go with healers. Every expansion has more and more questionable healer design choices.

So if I had any expectations, it would be the following.

1 - Upgraded sfx dps spell/dot.
2 - More redundant healing.
3 - "We've raised the damage to make you heal more" lie.
4 - More robes.
5 - Healer role in need in both DF and PF x10.

If we want to get more specific...

WHM
1 - Lily regen (ST or AoE)
2 - Thin Air 3rd charge
3. That's it.

SCH
1 - Fae spender
2 - Fairy is auto summon glam
3 - Expedient nerf
4 - Embrace nerf

AST
1 - Healing nerfed into an unplayable state
2 - Disconnecting and dumbing down the cards even more
3 - Macrocosmos nerf
4 - Essential Dignity 3rd charge
5 - Lord/Lady removed again
6 - Synastry removed
7 - Astrodyne reworked into something worse
8 - Players locking out AST due to poor stated released in.

SGE
1 - Pneuma dmg removed
2 - Soteria removed
3 - Krasis reworked into Soteria (OG)
4 - Pepsis reworked in flat AoE heal
5 - Gap closer 2nd charge

[ForsakenRoe]

If we want to get more specific...

You forgot the most obvious SCH changes

5: Removed Energy Drain (again)
6: Added Energy Drain 4 weeks later due to VERY vocal player feedback (again)

Afflatus Shelter: *New* Level 76 - 100 potency regen on self and all party members within 30 yalms for 15 seconds and reduces magic damage taken by 5% for 15 seconds. 60 second GCD cooldown. Costs 1 lily. Nourishes the Blood Lily.

Was rereading things and I struggle to believe this one. Not the effect, it's plain jane enough that the devs would absolutely leap at the idea of 'AOE Regen Lily spender'. No, the name annoys me for some reason. 'Shelter' doesn't sound 'high and mighty' enough to me for the WHM naming theme. We got Asylum, Solace, Rapture, Confession (the buff from PI) so I'd propose... Afflatus Absolution. Or maybe that could be something else, idk I think the word 'Absolution' would fit well somewhere on WHM