Encounter healing, ShB vs EW

[Sebazy]

If SE couldn't decipher the data of why WHM was popular in SHB (that being, they mangled AST's OGCD healing potencies in the rework, and made the cards/divination too weak, and WHM super strong for the first time in several years), then they really gotta train in data analysis skills a bit more.

I mean they couldn't even remember to update and keep relevant the very mechanic that garnered them all that good will towards WHM for EW.

It's yet another smoking gun that highlights just how little care and testing goes towards healers IMO. Any vaguely competent healer main would have spotted that oversight just like they would have spotted the others.

[Renathras]

(This sounds like the SB SCH discussion all over again...)

Honestly, no idea what metrics they use. But I'll take it at this point that EW WHM + Aero 3 would be good. Meh, I'd be fine with that.

[Rithy255]

SHB was actually slightly more unique then EW
White mage had long cast times which was fun for me, Astro had their barrier sect which didn't play like scholar (now we got sage which is scholar but more flashy).

I expect them to remove your DOT or something in DT, maybe reduce casts more or something because we can't have healers be unique or fun.

[Mortex]

EW WHM + Aero 3 = what SHB WHM should have been. Which means that EW WHM would have one expansion of stuff on top of that. We're 'in debt' by one expansion of stuff, like how people consider EW SMN to be 'in debt' by two, since it feels like it'd have fit SB design better. Whatever we get in DT, will be what EW WHM should/could have been

If SE couldn't decipher the data of why WHM was popular in SHB (that being, they mangled AST's OGCD healing potencies in the rework, and made the cards/divination too weak, and WHM super strong for the first time in several years), then they really gotta train in data analysis skills a bit more. But then again, we know they see how many people level BLU and think 'yes BLU is a success' so who knows at this point

Don’t forget whm was only this strong for the first raid tier. And had no mana problems like astro. The moment eden 5-8 came out astro had everything with “new” sleeve draw and mana gain on cards plus more ogcd and way better mitigation on bubble with 1 min cd.

[Maltothoris]

When you think about it, hardly an expansion never not had problems with healers after ARR. ARR has a few changes here and there but it wasn't a lot.

Starting with Heavensward, that was where the issues started with Astro almost getting something every single patch from 3.01 all the way to 3.4. They were doing every thing they could to try and make people try it.

In Stormblood SCH started off really weak before all the buffs and stuff that added in 4.05 and 4.1. Also WHM was always memed on though the class itself reminded a pick because of how mp efficient it was with Thin Air and the cd to Assize from 90 to 60. Then afteer 4.4 put astro ahead, they finally give all the enmity reductions for whm in 4.5 along with super buffing Assize again there.

in Shadowbringers we again have the start with Astro and they had to buff it twice with 5.05 and 5.1 and changed sleeve draw in 5.3. There was also the issue with a lack of healing that made them bring back energy drain after they got rid of it since Aetherflow stacks were always being held.

Here in Endwalker we had probably the second least bumpy expansion after arr but we still have gotten constant changes for the most part. WHM was 6.1 with following patches making lilybell better along with damage increases with a lower cd reduction to Assize and Dia being made stronger. There was also SGE getting buffs to Phelmga and them trying to make toxicon more available. There was also the major changes to the range of ogcds as well.

Also this was all the way back fropm 3.4 but I think it's still a huge major part when it comes to designing healers. http://https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi...xt_of_endgame/

I'm disappointed because S-E relies too heavily numbers buffs. Ability X potency is now increased. Ability Y's duration is now extended. Ability Z's cooldown is now reduced. These buffs are lazy, sloppy, and boring. They often fail to address the issues.

[Renathras]

When you think about it, hardly an expansion never not had problems with healers after ARR. ARR has a few changes here and there but it wasn't a lot.

True, but to be fair, there were only two, they complemented each other well, they were not so imbalanced people were trying to bench one, and the meta hadn't at all built up (fflogs didn't exist), so there wasn't a bit push for balance or Jobs being blacklisted or etc for WHM/SCH.

When there are only 2 healer Jobs to fill your 2 healer slots and they're pretty complementary and close enough people want to take both, it's a lot easier to keep them balanced, probably.

EDIT: Typos

[Connor]

When you think about it, hardly an expansion never not had problems with healers after ARR. ARR has a few changes here and there but it wasn't a lot.

I’d say this kind of applies to every role and every sub-role though. Whether it’s tank balance or physical ranged either breaking the game or just being kinda lame, they always need to do quite a bit of work when expansions come. In that respect I think Endwalker has had less ‘major revisions’ or chronic balancing issues than any other expansion.
Though, naturally that’s less because they’ve made everything perfect, and more that they made it all basically the same lol

[Sebazy]

Fun fact, actually there were rumblings towards double SCH being very much the meta pick for BCOB. Solitude ignored it at the time, likely Minori wasn't having any of that but many other progression teams switched over to it and it was indeed highly effective thanks to the extra damage it offered and SCH's being able to ignore/heal through the Infirmity debuff.

As far as healers post expansion go, the healer issues were particularly egregious because they were so obviously going to be a problem right out of the gate though no? Even the tiniest bit of testing by anyone somewhat experienced in the game would have spotted them immediately. It wasn't even just a numerical thing that, HW AST, SB SCH and ShB AST all just sucked and were obviously critically flawed.

The most frustrating part of Endwalker was that even with very little change overall, they *still* managed to goof one of the healers aka forgetting to update Lilies causing WHM to not want to use them outside of downtime or movement.

Man, now I've remembered that even SB AST had some pretty deep problems (unable to click cards, undraw bloat etc). Please dear god let this rework not be a dumpster fire like seemingly every other time they've touched the job =(

[Absurdity]

There was really no difference between encounter healing in ShB and EW, which is no surprise since they simply iterated on ShB's awful design.
They severely nerfed healing output when the 5.0 rework hit. I still remember testing my level 70 healing output against my friend's level 80 healing output and it was barely a few thousand HP more despite HP pools almost doubling.

It did achieve the, I assume intended, effect that healing felt like you actually had something to do for the first few weeks after launch, but as soon as we got gear from the first Eden raid tier it immediately went back to just solving everything with oGCDs.

There was arguably even less to heal in ShB.
Remember E6S, where even the PF strat was to just ignore Ifrit's football mechanic and have everyone take a vuln stack instead because healing through it was still a joke and you could maximize dps uptime instead? Or tanks simply standing in Garuda's aoes to keep uptime because they had plenty of defensives to spare and healers plenty of oGCDs?
Or E2S where you would just drop one of the proximity aoes (the melee one) directly on the party for uptime because the damage it did was a joke?