Regen healers are breaking the game

[Valence]

I do think that regen healers (WHM and AST) are too meta defining, and while they already were in Endwalker, they feel even more oppressive right now than ever, AST in particular for all the reasons already mentioned in various threads.

The main problem is that a team having one will immediately get a big advantage over a team that doesn't. The weight those on demand heals bring to the table gives such a superior edge that it immediately sets up a hierarchy. While SE tried to reduce pvp overly relying on healing (and thus the healer) which was a huge issue with Feast and old pvp modes, and I do agree that the new direction by offering less heals available on demand is a way better and satisfying direction to alleviate that issue, I do believe that heals in their current state are too powerful and too meta defining for multiple reasons:

- They do allow to save burst targets and are very much often the difference between a dead target and a target that just lived because they were fully healed when under Guard.
- Even in teams that do not callout targets or just don't follow callouts well (essentially anything below Diamond, and even in Diam/Crystal, sometimes people don't care either), then it means that the team is relying on pressure damage alone to eventually make the other team yield. If the other team has a healer, it essentially negates most of that pressure or a big part of it, and makes all the difference as well.
- The heals they have also make them a lot harder to kill, especially AST that benefits not only from a huge amount of free instant cast heals, but also a free teleport, which sometimes can prevent your team from trying to focus the healer because of the imbalance it causes, and securing a kill on them gives you a big advantage and you can very much feel the load dropping significantly when they're not here anymore to free heal their team.
- Some people will compare those heals to PLD's Guardian cover ability, and I'd partially agree because that ability is very strong and will negate kills on targets that should have died. But I also disagree because it comes at a certain cost for the PLD, namely burning their own Guard not to melt and die, and standing still for 5s doing nothing while the covered target uses an elixir. For healers, the heals are essentially free, and there isn't much you can do about it.

What are the main culprits?

- Cure II: huge healing potency of 12k, but on a cast time, which tends to make it a lot more bearable than the other ones since it can be used less reactively, but it will definitely work on people under Guard and other targets if it doesn't have to be use within a second.
- Cure III: instant 16k healing on main target and 12k on everybody around. This is incredibly versatile on a 20s cooldown (!), which can heal teams fully from AoE LBs and negate them partially, or just be used instantly on a target about to die from a coordinated burst.
- Aspected Benefic: 6k that can go up to 9k if target's HP is low, with an added regen and 4k more shield if double casted. This has always been, and is more than ever, crazy good since it's instant cast, on a 12s recast (so 24s for full charges).
- Macrocosmos: Can negate crazy amounts of AoE damage.
- Lady: 25y range, will do an equivalent of a free aspected benefic on essentially everybody, instant cast as well.

None of those cost anything but a low recast time (essentially every time people get their burst tools back more or less, how convenient), except cure II that has a cast time.

I do believe that if we want to keep the game and the meta healthier, then those should come at a cost, namely MP cost. At what MP cost, I do not know, but they should drain the healer, period.

[AristocraticCorgi]

you have no idea how many matches I have lost because of these two scenarios:

1. everyone in my team neglects to attack the WHM/AST
2. everyone in my team neglects to attack the WHM/AST and, to add insult to injury, hyper focus on the tank that the healer is sustaining quite well

Healers can be dealt with and neutralized but the team needs attack them relentlessly from the get go. If not, they will settle in the middle of the fight and just continue healing their team mates, as they should, all the way to victory.

I have been able to disrupt and win some games when I go after healers and no one defends them, or I get a team mate or team mates joining me in disrupting the healers' activities.

Any team that ignores a competent healer with competent team mates will lose the fight very quickly.

[Nezusagi]

AST definitely needs another nerf. I've been in quite few matches where they've reached about 5% HP, had absolutely 0 MP, and suddenly they're able to fully heal themselves like they never took any damage.

[DendrielConcade]

Its comical how healers can drop respectable damage and good CC, while also having the ability to give free sustain to targets. Even if its minimal like WHM casting Cure for 1500MP or even 1000MP, it still is a dent in their MP and self-sustain. Its somewhat of a mess to balance too, because where do we draw the line on abilities costing MP? Honestly I prefer conditional things not costing MP(Arcane Crest, Riddle of Earth, Pneuma, Snake Scales, Zanshin, Bloodwhetting) while things that just heal(Cure II/Cure III, Aspected Benefic, Meisui, Curing Waltz, Heart of Corundum) should get a MP cost/change in effect/longer CD that makes sense. Scaling the costs based off of {Recuperate}'s MP cost with maybe slightly less or more depending on the heal type, maybe things would be a little bit better.

I really don't want PvP to slink into a Hero Shooter type mindset, but things really should be more balanced in the way of sustain.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Technically, a healer's ability to drop heals on a target is counterbalanced by having an action less about damaging/interrupting the enemy directly and said heal being gated by its cooldown/recharge timer.

WHM's damage output is definitely respectable, but not on par with actual DPS or even some of the tanks because of Cure II + Aquaveil in their kit. Arguably the greatest gain here is being able to hold "Cure III ready" for the entire cooldown of Seraph Strike. Seraph Strike also providing 10% Protect I suppose, but you gotta dive an enemy for it. Then you have LB: Afflatus Purgation which has a bit of a regen component to it. That said, WHM healing is generally on the GCD.

AST however is being overly favourited here by the designer. For one, assuming it is used at the ideal time (at <= 50% HP), Aspected Benefic heals for 9000, with 2x 4000 heal following in the next 4-6 seconds (total 17000). Even if we only use one regen tick here, this already outperforms Cure II for the same CD timer, while also being instant rather than having cast time. Beyond this, using a charge of Doublecast you can fire off a second Aspected Benefic with the same base heal formula, but a 4000 HP shield (so essentially "healing" for 4000 yellow HP), going up to the same 13000 effective value as the first one with one regen tick - and the second heal isn't on GCD, it is off GCD; an ability.

Doublecast recently (patch 7.1) had the recharge timer dropped from 15s(?) to 12s, while Gravity II is sitting at 20s - so you have MANY opportunities to use it for Aspected Benefic throughout the match.

On top of that, you have a 50% change to draw a Lady of the Crowns for an AOE 6000 heal and 10% party protect, and a SCALING healing component on Macrocosmos, which is part of your bigger engagement tools (for damage). The heal starts at 5000 and gains 1/4th (25%) of the damage inflicted on a player into account for an additional heal. So even if you already trigger it at say 30000 dmg dealt, that is already a 12500 heal for that player and without a hard limt, this can only go higher as HP + MP + CDs allow. Triggering the heal also either happens through expiration or using the ability Microcosmos, so it wont even trigger the GCD.

And then, to top it off, they have Epicycle - which I suppose was a cool idea given you are now forced to run into the enemy to use Lord of the Crowns (where-as using The Balance was safe in your backline), but with an additional 6000 HP shield (formerly 8000), a return-to-teleporter (Retrograde) you have 10 seconds to use before it expires and using Epicycle doesn't even need a target unlike Seraph Strike (and Icarus on Sage). It simply does too much and has no inherrent risk (I do not count misplay / mispress of a button as a risk).

And the irony is their damage is still relatively solid compared to White Mage, while having WAY more healing and mitigation.

Personal conclusion: White Mage is strong, but fair - Astrologian is just absolutely busted for no good reason.

Here's what I'd change about Astrologian (not all at once, but ideas that could be mixed and matched):

• Aspected Benefic: Reduce the regen from 4000 to 3000 per tick, making it max out at 15000 total healing // 12000 after 1 regen tick at ideal HP use
• Aspected Benefic (Doublecast): Remove the heal scaling based on HP, so it is 6000 heal + 4000 shield // Experimental, but it is still oGCD, keep that in mind
• Lady of Crowns: Reduce the heal from 6000 to 4000 or split it into two regen ticks of 3000. // debatable suggestion given RNG nature
• Epicycle: Remove the shield entirely + reduce the time you have before Retrograde expires from 10s to 3-5s. // Keeps the burst mobility, nerfs the freedom of zipping back and forth
• Macrocosmos: Shorten the time of Microcosmos triggering to 8 seconds (parity with Riddle of Earth) // Keeps the theoretical maximum still high, but a nerf to the opportunity window

Personally I think changes to Aspected Benefic and Epicycle are the best picks here, as those are the painpoint of what makes AST go "from 0 to 100" at "no MP remaining" and then zipping away with Epicycle.

[Loggos]

Here's what I'd change about Astrologian (not all at once, but ideas that could be mixed and matched):

• Aspected Benefic: Reduce the regen from 4000 to 3000 per tick, making it max out at 15000 total healing // 12000 after 1 regen tick at ideal HP use
• Aspected Benefic (Doublecast): Remove the heal scaling based on HP, so it is 6000 heal + 4000 shield // Experimental, but it is still oGCD, keep that in mind
• Lady of Crowns: Reduce the heal from 6000 to 4000 or split it into two regen ticks of 3000. // debatable suggestion given RNG nature
• Epicycle: Remove the shield entirely + reduce the time you have before Retrograde expires from 10s to 3-5s. // Keeps the burst mobility, nerfs the freedom of zipping back and forth
• Macrocosmos: Shorten the time of Microcosmos triggering to 8 seconds (parity with Riddle of Earth) // Keeps the theoretical maximum still high, but a nerf to the opportunity window

Personally I think changes to Aspected Benefic and Epicycle are the best picks here, as those are the painpoint of what makes AST go "from 0 to 100" at "no MP remaining" and then zipping away with Epicycle.

I think those are good suggestions, esp. the one regarding Epicycle because I do like the dash and I think AST needed that but the teleport and shield make it a problem.
(I'd be perfectly happy if they just copied PCT's smudge and let you slide away with some seconds of movement speed if that's not too unbalanced. No teleport, no shield.)

Another additional tweak (wouldn't fix the core but could balance out the power some more) could be to just flat-out revert Lady and Lord back to the old Sun (ATK%) and Tree (DEF%) cards.
No heal and no extra attack. It would still be powerful because you'd have a 1/2 chance to draw either a good defense or offense card instead of a 1/3 chance.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Its comical how healers can drop respectable damage and good CC, while also having the ability to give free sustain to targets. Even if its minimal like WHM casting Cure for 1500MP or even 1000MP, it still is a dent in their MP and self-sustain. Its somewhat of a mess to balance too, because where do we draw the line on abilities costing MP? Honestly I prefer conditional things not costing MP(Arcane Crest, Riddle of Earth, Pneuma, Snake Scales, Zanshin, Bloodwhetting) while things that just heal(Cure II/Cure III, Aspected Benefic, Meisui, Curing Waltz, Heart of Corundum) should get a MP cost/change in effect/longer CD that makes sense. Scaling the costs based off of {Recuperate}'s MP cost with maybe slightly less or more depending on the heal type, maybe things would be a little bit better.

I really don't want PvP to slink into a Hero Shooter type mindset, but things really should be more balanced in the way of sustain.

I can see where you are coming from, but you do not need MP cost to balance healing - otherwise what was the point of Recuperate as a mechanic? Adjusting the numbers is what really needs to be done here.

As for the list of actions you posted here, this is really just Pandora's Box at this point, let me rapid-fire through that list a bit. This is not meant to discredit you, I'm just giving my opinion on those.

Things you consider conditional heal effects:

• Arcane Crest: 12000 HP barrier (so worth a heal of 12000) which triggers an AOE 2 x 6000 AOE regen on break - it is a maddening amount for that CD
• Riddle of Earth: actual conditional healing here with 4000 + 50% of your damage taken
• Pneuma: essentially 4x 3000 HP barrier and if additional barriers expire, they trigger the heal worth it - so its not really conditional (but man that cooldown is unfairly long)
• Snake Scales, Zanshin, Bloodwhetting: Lifesteal skills, so I suppose conditional/modular healing.

Things you consider "just healing" and could/should get additional restrictions:

• Cure II/III: Already gated by a CD each, both trigger GCD, the latter requires you diving an enemy target to get one cast every 20s maximum - this is literally fine
• Aspected Benefic: Definitely needs a nerf to heal numbers (both versions), but MP cost feels unnecessary considering it still has a recharge CD.
• Meisui: Already costs a use of Three Mudra (where a lot of your damage comes from), triggers GCD, can't be used back to back (Mudra sealing), also has Purification opportunity
• Curing Waltz: Has a positional requirement for double-dipping as a mechanical input
• Heart of Corundum: Is also a mitigation tool (10%) and sort of vital for GNB.

I agree certain heals might need adjustments, but MP cost isn't something I'd suggest given the other peculiarities about them.

[Loggos]

I can see where you are coming from, but you do not need MP cost to balance healing - otherwise what was the point of Recuperate as a mechanic? Adjusting the numbers is what really needs to be done here.

Technically, a healer's ability to drop heals on a target is counterbalanced by having an action less about damaging/interrupting the enemy directly and said heal being gated by its cooldown/recharge timer.

I agree with this. I don’t think it’s a good idea to tie healing spells to MP. Unlike PvE, PvP kits’ cohesiveness were designed around CDs and charges in the explicit absence of MP usage for regular skills to manage the frequency of their usage.

I’d rather have the devs keep one consistent design philosophy and balance within that philosophy.

If you start to use MP as an extra resource beyond your four charges of recuperate (which can be manipulated via MP drain) then I think you need to redesign the core of all kits because as Dendriel and Reinhardt said, where do you stop?

What about hybrid skills that are both attack and heal at the same time like Holy Spirit or White Comet? Should they cost MP? And if so should they cost the same because they have the same heal (8k instant)? Because this could lead to further balance issues. Holy Spirit heals very quickly for example, whereas White Comet only heals after 2ish seconds because of the long animations (so you die much more often despite casting it).

Should only healing spells cost MP but not healing abilities (after all in PvE melees have a healing CD as well that costs no MP)?
What about shields which come with many magical and non-magical abilities and what about damage to HP conversion?

Why just tie strong healing to MP? What about big damage? Why should a strong heal demand MP consumption but for example PCT’s 12k ranged AoE bomb on a 16s cooldown can just exist with a CD?

However at that point we have reached the PvE model where casters use MP and melees don’t.
And if we get there then the kits would need to be balanced further because adding MP to current caster kits would place a disproportional disadvantage on them compared to close-range classes.

They would need different MP pools proportional to the MP demands of their kits because otherwise their survivability would be inherently worse in a game mode where they can't avoid damage by not standing in bad spots.

I don’t think casters should be punished with less self-healing in order to be able to act, esp. if their skills aren’t instant and require you to stand still. So you would need to balance MP in a way that every class can still use recuperate roughly the same amount of time while adding more MP on top for caster kits.

But then this leads to the other extreme, where casters could potentially use recuperate a lot more often in cases of emergency instead of using their MP for attacking which would then give them much more survivability than melees.

So then you could disconnect recuperate from MP and give it an extra resource/spender to keep it fair across classes.

But then you are basically where you started because now you have caster and melee kits where some classes can heal and those heals are tied to specific resource management, only that now it’s not just CDs and charges but also MP, so nothing is really gained.

In PvE it makes sense to tie spells to MP and not do the same for melee health regeneration because the proximity to the target, damage reception and healing factor into jobs’ gameplay differently than in PvP, where it’s not about uptime, party-wide coordinated mitigation, very controlled damage distribution (if you don’t stand in the bad) and distinct healing sources (healers) in a rigidly choreographed fight.

I think in its current form CC kits, with their limited number of skills and design simplicity (no spenders etc.), fare better with their current resource management approach.

[Commander_Justitia]

Why just tie strong healing to MP? What about big damage? Why should a strong heal demand MP consumption but for example PCT’s 12k ranged AoE bomb on a 16s cooldown can just exist with a CD?

However at that point we have reached the PvE model where casters use MP and melees don’t.
And if we get there then the kits would need to be balanced further because adding MP to current caster kits would place a disproportional disadvantage on them compared to close-range classes.

They would need different MP pools proportional to the MP demands of their kits because otherwise their survivability would be inherently worse in a game mode where they can't avoid damage by not standing in bad spots.

I don’t think casters should be punished with less self-healing in order to be able to act, esp. if their skills aren’t instant and require you to stand still. So you would need to balance MP in a way that every class can still use recuperate roughly the same amount of time while adding more MP on top for caster kits.

But then this leads to the other extreme, where casters could potentially use recuperate a lot more often in cases of emergency instead of using their MP for attacking which would then give them much more survivability than melees.

So then you could disconnect recuperate from MP and give it an extra resource/spender to keep it fair across classes.

We had MP and TP. And we actually ran out of TP and needed skills to refresh it. Sprint consumed full TP bar as well, so it was rarely used.
Then we had MP and TP, but sprint became an additional. Most skills got removed, so you didn't really run out of TP that much I guess.
Then we had only MP to manage resources. Ironically some jobs, didn't use MP at all, like warrior, but it was still possible to use the additional Muse, which was regenerating MP.
Now we have MP, but it only manages selfheals.

This game only allows for one direction. Simplification.

You can argue bringing TP back. But I think the devs would rather think about how to remove MP.

[DendrielConcade]

Various Reasonable Points

I appreciate the more detailed thoughts, providing raw numbers and such which mostly I can get behind, and as I stated in my post that you quoted yourself, for the options...

...should get a MP cost/change in effect/longer CD that makes sense.

And also how I stated "Conditional" mostly means "Things that aren't a direct heal/do not provide healing without enemy interactions". All of this could just be balanced with more reasonable cooldowns for some things, I'm not deeply advocating for MP on all of these abilities but its still worth mentioning to gauge how people feeling about that thought, feels like if I didn't say anything about it someone else will. Already doesn't help a lot of things that are actually crucial issues in certain classes kits for both overtuned and undertuned seemingly are ignored for simple number changes in potencies in other parts like that'll fix it, but maybe we'll see reasonable things, eventually, possibly.