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.

[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.

[Valence]

I'd definitely like to see AST nerfed because it's borderline godlike (does better on everything than a WhM, including damage, I've seen AST damage boards going over everybody but the big hitters like GNB/SMN/MCH), but I still do feel that regen healers pose a real problem to the game. Whether we consider that the game is actually meta balanced around healers being here to do what they allow, or that the game is balanced around no regen healers being here, the real problem is that a team without one is worse off than a team with one, whether it's an AST or not.

They're frankly cancer, and if people drop too fast in crystal rank and LPs, then perhaps it's a problem of design rather than requiring healers to save people from dying before they even press purify.

Also I'm sorry but a single CD for Cure II/III is nothing. We're not in pve where missing a cast is a huge deal either, especially when your replacement cast is saving your team from getting kill staggered.

[Valence]

Alternative I'm perfectly happy with, just nerf the crap out of their damage output if you want them to heal like that. PLD is doing subpar damage because of all the insane defensive tools it has as a tradeoff, and it keeps the job in check. SCH is doing abyssmally low damage in exchange for how unique and weird the job behaves and influences games. Can you imagine if those jobs were able to casually reach 800k ++ damage at the end of games like AST can?

We'd get very low kill long winded games like we can get at times, but that's also not a huge issue, they do work as well.

[Bureda]

Alternative I'm perfectly happy with, just nerf the crap out of their damage output if you want them to heal like that. PLD is doing subpar damage because of all the insane defensive tools it has as a tradeoff, and it keeps the job in check. SCH is doing abyssmally low damage in exchange for how unique and weird the job behaves and influences games. Can you imagine if those jobs were able to casually reach 800k ++ damage at the end of games like AST can?

We'd get very low kill long winded games like we can get at times, but that's also not a huge issue, they do work as well.

Don't be ignorant. Paladin does high levels of damage whilst being relatively safe. They can push you out of an objective or fight solo and when they LB is up, that damage becomes lethal. As Square Enix said. They have an exceptionally high win rate and it's not because they used cover.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Also I'm sorry but a single CD for Cure II/III is nothing. We're not in pve where missing a cast is a huge deal either, especially when your replacement cast is saving your team from getting kill staggered.

The reason I mentioned "triggers GCD" isn't because it costs you important damage like in PVE, but rather that you can absolutely miss a key opportunity to heal when you used a damaging GCD prior (Afflatus Misery & Glare IV for example).

So if at any point you commit to a damage GCD, that is 3.84 (2.4s + 1.44s cast time) before a Cure II comes out, somewhere around 2.6s for a Cure III. So either way you are either getting halted in doing actions so you can heal with Cure II in time given the cast time, or you are taking calculated risks each time you press non-heal GCDs that your next GCD heal may not be in time.

For 12000, Cure II is fine given that cast time. Cure III can't really be spammed, but I think they should reconsider for how long you can hold Cure III.

Aspected Benefic though... yeah no, this one breaks the charts with Doublecast and the total heal value on each part.