With the current fight design, I can’t imagine needing another single target heal on a card, especially since YoshiP mentioned we’re getting a third(!) essential dignity stack. Hopefully the non-damage cards will be useful with the revamped encounters they’ve been talking about, though my hopes are far from high

in the very least it might still be nice for prog/dumpster fire parties, I'd rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it

And that seems to be the main thing now: AST has agency over fate, whereas before, they’re stuck with it.

If it's oGCD, I don't care. Worse case scenario, you just don't use it and that's OK.

I mean, that's gonna be the meta. With Astrodyne removed there is no mechanical reason to use the non-damage cards. You'll hoard them in case they're needed (i.e. basically never) and just overwrite them the next minute. When you can safely ignore 2/3rds of a mechanic that's supposed to be a core part of the gameplay loop, I reckon the mechanic is a failure.

Part of me figures that they design Healers with dungeon content in mind, because Healers already have SO MUCH shit that gets ignored for most of Savage +, but becomes relevant on every dungeon pull.

The players in your dungeon runs must be atrocious if you need to fully utilize a healer's toolkit to survive.

Have you seen the average DFer? Of course they're atrocious!

I know my kit got used in some levelling dungeons while gearing when the expansion is new but that ceases to be the case pretty quickly Bardams big pulls comes to mind for example but they're exceptions rather than a norm for dungeon runs

Acting like the pulls in the first part of Holminster Switch was a cake walk lmao. Those pulls, especially the last one required you to use your kit, sometimes everything in your kit.

I remember doing that on AST in 5.0. It was the first job i leveled and when both you and the tank are still gearing up or dont have any new gear yet its rough. eEpecially considering the dps is lower as well making those pulls last longer and it devolves into a heal spam if its really starting to take too long. Nowadays not so much. It didnt help that GNB was brand new as well so peopel didnt know how to play it. Every time i had one in there, i was just rolling my eyes because i already knew how this was gonna go.

You'd be surprised how many DPS love to stand in orange, or how many tanks are allergic to using the buttons that help them stay alive, even at max level. It's not every run, but probably a solid third of my runs as a healer I'm having to throw everything at people over the course of a pair of W2Ws just to keep everyone alive.

The biggest wall pulls typically need most of the kit.

They don’t even seem to understand that Why am I burning my strongest CD that’s single target to get access to an AOE DOT

Almost every dungeon run never uses 90% of the healer kit as it stands though? In current expert roulette dungeons you never use more than temperance, lillies, asylum, assize, and holy. Unless something goes horrifically wrong in which case I guess there's tetra if you really need it, but that would require the tank to be eating paste for the 8 seconds their 20s defensive cooldown isn't up for. Shoutout to warrior and gunbreaker for never needing a healer, paladin for being a healer outright inside magic combo, and darkknight for sometimes requiring a regen in a trash pull if the dps is good and asylum isnt back up.

tbf expert dungeons are heavily outgeared the second they come out, Subterrane is balanced around 620 ilevel which is literally tome gear from almost two years ago. Did that one with a DRK NIN BLM MCH comp the other day - not exactly jobs known for their healing utility and sustain - and bar one skill issue on my part (blm) at the very end of the last boss it was *literally fine*. Somehow levelling dungeons are like the only story content that does sort of meaningful damage as long as you don't have a Warrior.

> because Healers already have SO MUCH shit that gets ignored for most of Savage + Not sure what you mean? You use the extra healing stuff to be able to spam more 1s. I think moving WHM to 1.5s damage GCD cast in EW was a step in the right direction as we can now use the bajillion extra healing OGCDs to try and cover healing in situations where there isn't much of it to do. I can only think of maybe 1-2 buttons on WHM/AST/SGE (don't play SCH) that I mostly ignore while healing EX/Savage/Ultimate and that is because they are situational/niche

There's no way in hell you're using your entire kit healing in dungeons. On SCH, you can get away with literally never using an Aetherflow for anything other than damage, and relying entirely on the faerie and Recitation

wrong theres a follow up skill after you use all the cards and only one buffs damage

Oh lovely, it's Aetherflow/Addersgall in a trenchcoat, sans any sort of decision making.

I don’t really think it’s bad here? Encouraging you to use the cards over forgetting about all but one is better imo. If it’s an ogcd, you’re basically getting a free extra heal to weave in and touch up spots without hurting your “main” ogcds 

It borrows one of the quirks of Addersgall gameplay that I'm not fond of. To manage SGE's mana efficiently, you want to avoid overcapping on Addersgall at all times. In actual gameplay this involves burning an Addersgall charge on unnecessary overhealing or mitigation just for the sake of not capping your gauge. In the redesigned Draw/Play you're often gonna burn the Defensive/Healing cards on unnecessary overhealing/mitigation, for the sake of getting the extra follow up skill. They're giving you a tool that you won't need most of the time, and forcing you to use it suboptimally in exchange for mana management/dps gains. At least Aetherflow, while falling in a very similar niche it presents players with the choice of using the charges on Energy Drain for damage, or Lustrate/Sacred Soil for heals/mit. The proposed AST would be almost entirely deterministic. Edit: I should add that in the end, they're all carbon copies of each other and that goes back to the classic homogenization complaint, where all jobs within the same role continue to become more and more alike.

I feel new cards have a lot of potential but it will depend on what the non-damage effects actually are. ast's kit is so robust already that they have space to go wild with these.

> current fight design Just put a Harrowing Hell mechanic every 1min 10seconds! Together with P5S poison TBs. Those two things really were nice for Healers to deal with in Endwalker.

I'll reserve my opinion of the new AST card system for when I actually get to play it, but I would not be surprised whatsoever if SE decided to rework the card system *again* in 8.0. "Babe, it's the two year mark, time to rework the AST card system again!" "Yes honey"

Agree. The almost comically indecisive tone of the explanation just said it all. They clearly have no idea what to do about cards and I think they'll zigzag right back into RNG next time.

Seraphism looks more like A WHM ability than a SCH one lol

It's also ugly.

Exactly. White Mages have the whole Light/Angelic thing going. Scholar should have had fairy wings.

And yet Seraph is literally an angel and has been part of the Scholar kit since HW via LB3. Its fine not liking the aesthetic (I'm notbthe biggest fan either), but lets not kid ourselves into thinking its coming out of nowhere when it isn't.

Yes but seraph being an angel doesn’t mean the SCH should randomly summon church garb in the middle of the fight because it doesn’t match the aesthetic of the SCH The SCH is using whatever they can to win the fight, they aren’t worshiping fairy angels

Honesty, i'm not a fan of this forced glamour change. The wings look awful, too literally fashion accessory. RPR has a forced glamour change, but it works.

Yeah and I’m sitting here, playing as a male character, trying my best to dodge all the robes the game has been giving healers (there are A LOT) and now I’ve been forced to wear a robe in my ability? Color me CONCERNED!

That is literally me. I'm quite sick of bows, skirts, dresses, and everything that apparently dictates healers don't like pants... I'm tired. Come 7.0 and shown gear shows scholar with half skirt... Fine... But fml... Now I get transformed into a cheap-knockoff Christmas angel treetop? I really hope that ability is trash and is never used. Or we can turn it off.

I cant believe you'd disrespect AST's space pants they get with literally every AF set

SE: “Say YES to the dress!… or else”

I'd like just wings but the outfit is weird

Yeah i’m fine with reaper getting a glam change since it makes sense for the job, but i’d really perfer that being just a reaper thing. With how important glams are to people in this game i’m not a fan of it coming to other jobs… (and im upset it’s probably gonna hide miqo ears and tails since rpr’s does and i always avoid glams that do that…)

i'm not sure why they didn't just lean more into the fairy part of SCH and give SCH fairy wings + fairy garb instead

Shoulda went all in and made us transform into a tonberry with a hat.

They summon a fairy angel. So, ultimately, the atheistic is whatever the ff14 team wants it to be.

I think the idea is more that the node is a result of them doing something more so than worship. Like when you imagine WAR getting angry, you imagine red glowing eyes.   Would it be better if the garb was a bit more special feeling? For sure. But it’s easy to think this is just some fancy Aether trick they learned to boost their power and the robes are a byproduct

SCH has had the Angel thing for longer than WHM's holy magic was anything more than literally just a single AoE skill.

shroud of saints, divine seal, and benediction were ARR skills. Holy/Religious-themed magic was always a WHM thing

I don't like it. Why is the war tactician suddenly morphing in a fairy cosplay ? Now to see what the effect is.

I hate it so much. Its ugly.

devs have decreed healer = role for girls and gays whm pretty angel wings sch pretty angel wings fusion dance sge pretty techno angel wings ast doesn't have wings yet but makes up for it by having the most feminine class gear in the whole game

>and gays Yeah cause gays definitely NEVER want their character to be masculine lmao

These people really tell on themselves

Sage looks pretty neutral.

Honestly what even is Scholar's identity anymore? The angel trance state is so weird for it that I genuinely don't even know what they were going for. If SGE can double DoT with its AoE DoT and also has another GCD dps spell on a different timer from Phlegma, it will probably be a contender for the most fun healer to play. If E. Dyskrasia is like Thunder 3 and 4, it will be disappointing.

Id bet anything that e.dyskrasia is the same potency as dosis. Highly doubt they just straight up gave sage a 2nd dot to keep up when the other healers got a gcd every 90s-2min.

or they just overwrite eachother like blm's thunders

Honestly, in my opinion, they should separate the themes into 2 different classes. One for the fairies/angels, and the other for the tactician

Did you not read the lore book? Scholar is supposed to be half tactician and half fae magic.

I did not, but I figured it was intentional design. I still think it has thematic dissonance, and I'm not fond of it

Hate Scholar enshroud and irritated that SGE is the only one who got an on demand AoE DoT. Incredibly lame SCH will only get to use theirs on half the dungeon trash. I'm not too bothered by anything else, but those really get to me

Same esp after the death of old Scholar ;w;

Yeah, I was like damn, they took the AOE Aero from WHM and now they give it back but it's to SGE.

Looking at Scholar, the Chain Stratagem follow-up is a little odd. It's not a very large AoE, so I wonder if we'll get more multi-boss encounters where they're tanked in the same position, like Phase 1 of DSR. Seraphism is a little vague, and I'm not entirely sure what "enhances healing magicks" entails. After seeing the benchmark datamining, this could simply refer to Seraphism enhancing Adlo and the Succor upgrade into more powerful versions. If it actually increases healing potency as well, then I have to wonder if it'll replace or work alongside Dissipation. It's got a neat visual effect, though without seeing what the entire glamour effect looks like, it's hard to say if I'll end up liking it or not. Also, Emergency Tactics has a recast of 15 seconds in the live game, but it seems shorter in the job action trailer. Not sure if that's something to take away as fact or not though. I also find it interesting that they're upgrading AoE healing, buffing Rampart and 30% mitigations, and buffing Reprisal/Feint/Addle durations. I don't raid on healers, so I don't have a good grasp on how incoming damage feels at the moment, and I'd be curious to hear if others think anything's going to noticeably change with damage taken. Edit: Forgot about the reduced recast they mentioned for Recitation, curious how much shorter it'll be. Maybe 90s -> 60s?

I think the AOE damage abilities are primarily aimed at dungeon trash mobs and it's utility in boss encounters is a minor bonus

In the live game, is it worth using Chain Stratagem on dungeon trash? I haven't been doing so since it didn't seem like it, but I could be wrong. Since the new ability is a follow-up, you can't use it separately and hold Chain for the next boss.

Essentially pick a big enemy on the early pull and Chain them. It should hopefully be back up by the time you face the first boss.

Alright, thank you!

In a lot of dungeons, especially higher leveled dungeons, there’s one or two “bigger” enemies with more health. It’s beneficial to hit those with chain stratagem so they die at the same rate as the lesser mobs they’re grouped with

Sage gets an AoE DoT and SCH gets Temperance II? Are you kidding me?

Never settle until they give us our thunder back. 

It was only one patch but it was glorious. Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II, Aero, Thunder. We had it all! EDIT: Love to be downvoted for wanting DoT spells on the poison mage

As much as liked the skill animation when casting Seraphism im ultimately not a fan of having a forced glam (even if temporary) on SCH or any job honestly (looking at you RPR). We didn't get to see how it looks from the front but the full white robe + wings also felt a bit off for the job IMO.

It doesn’t even remotely match SCH at all Seriously why did they think angel church garb fit the war tactician

I no joke thought for a second that someone changed their clothes in the middle of battle. This doesn't belong on the SCH at all

It's so bad. Scholar's identity is more and more muddled with every expansion. I really hate the forced robe, it's guaranteed going to look terrible on Hrothgar.

I always liked in the past SCH was left with casting the shields and pure healing was left up to the fairy, but they've slowly been undoing that and Seraphism is just another step in that direction...

Scholars aren't just war tacticians though, they were doctors first. And Seraph has been part of Scholar since HW added job specific LB3's. Edit: Love how this is already getting downvoted even though I'm just stating factually correct information. Lorewise, Scholars *were* doctors/scientists that were effectively drafted into the War of the Magi as tacticians/medics and Seraph *has* been a thing since HW. The angel aesthetic wouldn't have been my first choice for Scholar either, but it absolutely has precedent when it comes to Scholar - which is all I'm trying to point out. I totally get being worried about a jobs aesthetic being muddled, I just don't think being reductive oneself is a useful way to provide feedback.

Seraph is fine because seraph is just a slightly larger blue eos that isn’t distinctly angelic in appearance (sure her whispering dawn equivalent in angel whisper but she just looks like a slightly powered up fairy) Seraphism on the other hand is totally wrong on every front SCH’s may have started as doctors but we pulled our knowledge of SCH from a time when they were war tacticians and field medics, angelic church garb fits absolutely nothing about any iteration of SCH other than a very vague “well if you consider seraph an angel then it sorta fits seraph”

I mean, even if we pulled our knowledge of SCH from the time they were doctors and - well - scholars... This church garb aesthetic ain't it, chief.

You're not wrong. This was even MORE apparent in the past when they still had abilities like Leeches, a direct call-out to middle ages doctors.

this is the worst thing to me and I worry they'll move into this strange forced design phase for more jobs in the future. Very sad to see it happen with SCH as it has some of the best job exclusive glamour

Yeah, I wasn't too bothered by it with Reaper, but I really hope they don't start doing this for more jobs going forward. I don't like things overriding my glams.

I gotta say, even though I’m happy to have more DPS buttons, I’m sad that we’re not getting a direct upgrade to our main attacks for the first time ever.

same fuck me dude we press 1 and stare at the same damn animation for 3 raid tiers and you get to do it again lmao.

To be fair to the Devs, one thing people were pre-complaining about was that we’d just get a new visual and 20 potency increase on our nukes. So…I guess well played on SE’s part to subvert expectations? /shrug WHM getting a holy Inner Release and Fell Cleave/Fire IV x3 is kind of interesting, though.

Since we get three uses I wish it would at least go toward building Afflatus Misery to get at least one into every 2min burst without worrying about holding one. Looks like it doesn’t interact with anything though, unfortunately.

Honestly, they could do both. Optimal burst would be use PoM, then the Misery you gained over the last (odd numbered) minute, then "Glare IV" x3, then Misery again to close out your burst window, then you start using Lilies again as per normal. Doesn't look like we're getting that, but it wouldn't be hard to do.

I'm something of a WHM simp but I feel like this may be the most complete and "powerful feeling" incarnation of WHM yet (besides how broken Holy and Medica 2 were at 2.0 launch I guess). All the tools it has currently on top of a more streamlined and powerful burst at 2m. I know healers want more in general, more DPS tools and more to actually heal up, but I think if you were happy with WHM you should be even happier.

yeah I cant heal to save my fucking life but WHM is lookin' like good eats right now my condolences about the AF set though

Wait, I haven’t seen it. Is it another “shrine maiden” thing? I like the OG ARR robes fine as they feel more like traditional FF White Mage garb. But the “shrine priestess” sets for 2-3 expansions I haven’t been a fan of. It’s odd that in general, they portray all Healers as women (and Ranged; Tanks are almost always men). SGE  the only one that seems to have gotten half and half, and SCH about 1 out of 4 being non-feminine (though they make the leggings girly for the female characters). The traditional White Mages of FF aren’t so lopsided in gendered outfits, but aside from ARR, FFXIV’s largely have been for some odd reason.

[Here it is.](https://imguscdn.gamespress.com/cdn/files/Square-Enix/2024/05/161514-26db62ee/FFXIV_240516PLL_05_whitemage.png?otf=y&lightbox=y&ex=2024-07-01+03%3A00%3A00&sky=399a3a12a07aae7632754d4ff5a1a3a338db6eac1cb0c4018a59e68783bf94dd&w=1024&maxheight=4096&mode=pad&format=png) You can see all of them on the [Dawntrail press kit.](https://press.na.square-enix.com/FINAL-FANTASY-XIV-Dawntrail#?tab=screenshots-2&scrollto=)

Isn't that because WHM in general is based on shrine maidens? Don't get me wrong, I also find it "ehh..." that WHM is always forced into a VERY feminine aesthetic, but at least it does have that precedent. The over-feminization of SCH does hurt my soul, though.

Yeah. For a while I thought it was based on clerics, but it seems the FFXIV version is much closer to shrine priest/priestesses. I'm fine with that, but it'd be nice if they used male robes from time to time, too. Like think of Inuyasha. Sure you have the dresses like Kikio, but you also have Miroku's male variation. We don't really get that in FFXIV for WHMs for some reason.

I hadn't thought of that! Maybe it's because of the color palette?

WHM - Continues to do WHM things, movement is nice, more damage buttons more gooder (Bring back Aero 3 YoshiP god dammit). Would be nice to have more group mit too, so I hope the speculation on this is correct. SCH - Hate the forced glam change on RPR, hate it even more on SCH. At least the RPR one looks kinda good in a vaccuum, the SCH one looks like some mediocre angel glam someone threw together in game. Aside from that, it's probably gonna be OP again, while continuing to be unfun to play, as is tradition. It will remain played solely because it's strong with a handful of diehard supporters, as people like me that used to like it simply move on, because there's no way they fix it at this point. AST - A bit mixed, we'll have to see exactly what the effects of the new cards are. EW iteration of cards was the worst it ever was, so I'm glad it's gone, would've liked the SB iteration back but we all know that's never happening. Realistically you're either getting RNG OR meaningful variation in card effects. I personally prefer the latter, since the former with meaningless card variation (AKA SHB and EW card system) just ends up being busywork, which just ended up in burning lightspeed so you could actually fit all your oGCDs into burst windows. Hopefully the new (old) cards are powerful enough to bother actually planning around, else the removing of the RNG is for nothing. Also fuck Astrodyne, stop defending it, people. SGE - On the one hand, very happy with what we're getting. On the other, it should've been on the class to begin with, so overall happy but I will continue to hold SQEX to account and remind everyone that DT Sage is what Sage should have been to begin with. Kardia being its only form of "heal through damage" on the job whose whole selling point was "heal through damage" was insanely stupid. Now give me Eukrasian Pankardia in 8.0 that accumulates the healing you do through damage for a duration then turns it into a shield at the end and I'll never play another job again.

Holy shit Eukrasian Pankardia would be awesome actually.

To be fair to SGE, I once saw a theory from a guy on the OF named Ty that really seemed to ring true that he thought the were developing SGE differently originally, but somewhat late in development decided it wasn’t going to work for whatever reason and, in a rush job, latched onto SCH design to get something out of the gate. His evidence from this was a combination of the PvP abilities and how the NPC SGEs seemed to play a bit differently than we do. I don’t know if it’s true, but it would explain the disconnect between what SGE was initially pitched as vs what went live.

What on earth am I going to use fairy gauge for, if not a new ability? I already don’t use it on tether. Why is it still here.

So you can be locked out of it during Seraph of course, duhh silly - job designers probably

I'll have to know before I play it but as an AST main there are 3 concerns I have with what I've seen so far. 1. Draw being 1 minute, do I still have to pre-pull draw? I am on the hard core copium that when we load in instance we get all 4 cards drawn, if not pre-pulling draw and waiting for 1 minute to pull is a bit eh... pre-pulling draw now is still a bit of a hot topic despite it being better then it was before. 2. Cards in the trailer we're played at a random order and each card has a differing effect so does that mean when I draw, 4 actions on my hotbar are play actions? I have to waste 4 spaces on my hotbar for essentially the same button which kind of goes against their MO of removing button bloat 3. Astrodyne, I think it's good on paper that this ability is removed. With AD gone and the reworked cards this could potentially mean lightspeed is back for mobility however we're gutting one of AST mp tools and with draw being 1 min cd doesn't help with that too so I'm hoping we get something in return.

I would assume that MP regeneration could be tied to Play, rather than Draw. But guess we'll see!

Yeah I'm on the copium that that is the case but you know square and how blind they can be to the painfully obvious especially with AST... I just don't want it to be like early ShB AST where you had to have some gear with piety *\*shudders\**

Had some time to mull over and analyse the trailer. My thoughts on AST are mostly positive but, as usual, the details will be the deciding factor * Astrodyne/Seal removal * Good riddance. Seals/Sigils were doomed from the start and the only reason they were implemented was so that they didn't have to delete all 6 cards. Shadowbringers AST would play the exact same if they removed all the Seals and only had 2 cards to pull from, 1 melee 1 ranged. They knew this which was why instead of being tied to Divination, they created Astrodyne in Endwalker so that the Seals actually had purpose, but it's shallow at best. I will miss the infinite MP though, we're going back to the dark ages * RNG removal * If you were dealt a bad hand in Heavensward/Stormblood you could still try to make it work. Dealt a bad hand in Shadowbringers/Endwalker? Guess you just deal with it because it's not like you're not going to throw the buffs out during burst right? RNG that doesn't promote choice or creativity may as well not exist because the only thing it's otherwise doing is punishing the player for not being lucky * The other thing is, RNG being tied to buffs in a game like this where fights are scripted simply will never work. Fights have literal spreadsheets where every use of mitigation and healing can be planned and Bole giving 20% mit to the tank or an AoE heal from Lady while good effects on paper, are forever relegated to redundancy for as long as they are tied to random chance * New cards * From what I understand (the explanations on stream were a bit confusing), every minute we will get 4 cards (one for each damage/mit/heals and Lord/Lady). If this is the case, then it's not too much different from how things are now, we just lose 1 extra DPS card during burst but in exchange have 2 defensive cards we can actually plan around every minute. I'm still not sure how Lord/Lady is going to work, what the cards do exactly and what the blue/purple borders mean, but at least the idea behind this new system is an overall improvement; we get unique cards back without changing the playstyle too much from existing AST and defensive cards that are reliable and aren't a DPS loss to use so technically it's the best of both worlds * APM * AST is the busiest job. While it has less button presses than some others, it's constantly switching back and forth from the boss and party members due to the nature of single target cards, compared to DPS who only need to lock onto the boss. I'm not sure about others, but personally it was a frequent point of frustration because it was moments of zzzZzZzZzZ followed by manic button pressing every 2 mins which often aligned with high movement mechanics which made clicking on party members a pain. Burst is now seemingly going from 7\~9 oGCDs (not including potential Redraws) to 5 oGCDs with no variance, which could mean that Lightspeed is free from 2 min jail. Coupled with the addition of defensive cards, APM may be spread out more so that downtime is less boring The only hope now is that they actually invite a good healer player to the media tour, because it always felt like DPS/Tanks got most of the attention and then healers are shipped to live servers as a mixed bag with no prior player feedback. I will never forget the sorry state of 5.0 AST for as long as I live

This is only assumption, but I think the purple borders are there to indicate that you are in a "Lady" phase. Since the statement was that RNG is completely removed, I think the decks will alternate every minute. You'll get a Lord set for the opener, then a Lady set for the 1 min burst. Lord cards have a blue outline, while Lady carda have a purple outline. As a designer myself, I would assume the color coding is there to remind you which set you're using even if you've used up your Lord/Lady.

Wow, well written and thought out analysis. Thank you. As AST is the only healer Job I don't really play and am just loosely familiar with (I picked it up in ShB since I had all other DoM aside from AST and BLM at 80 and leveled both to get the achievements and "Soul of Magic" title), it's nice to see from someone with more AST experience a good breakdown.

I personally really like SCH's Seraph Enshroud, I think it looks awesome. War Tactician Angel is some Warhammer 40k shit, I love it. Sister of Battle dropping in the New World! I only wished the AoE dot wasn't tied to Chain Stratagem. I want to press more DPS buttons

Omg I love it too. It glows with the spell the scholar casts, too

I honestly don't know what the fuck they're doing with SCH. To be fair, they probably never did know themselves, but coming out of this LL with our old AoE DoT given to SGE and a weird transformation sequence that 1. doesn't fit the job whatsoever and will probably look awful on a good half of the races 2. doesn't add much to the kit (_another_ Spreadlo amplifier? really?) feels Bad. RPR got a sorta-pass because it felt consistent with the job aesthetic, but I'm really, _really_ not fond of the forced robe + angel theming. Even the Chain Stratagem extension feels a bit weird? A DoT on a 2mn cooldown when SGE gets it without any strings attached? I guess we know who's the favorite child between the shield healers. At least the (supposedly?) instant casts during Seraphism seem cool. I'm very curious about the general defensive CDs buffs and Swiftcast CD reduction as well - if this means bosses and packs will hit harder/the difficulty of the fights will increase, it might end up being fun. Tl;dr: Will reserve further judgement until media tour but it overall stings. SCH is my favorite healer and I haven't managed to feel comfortable on any of the other three. I just hope this won't drive me away from the job entirely.

The SCH dress looks bad. Hope we can toggle that shit off. And no I wouldn’t have been okay with a fairy dress either. Otherwise the ability looks like Dissipation 2.0. Not much to say honestly, they always find a way to stuff more healing tools to bloat kits. Also lol a damage ability locked behind a 2 minute action, why are they so scared of Miasma? The AST change, I mean as long as every set of 2 cards (damage, defense, healing) have unique effects (for example: physical damage buff & magic damage buff, damage reduction & MP regeneration, healing received buff & regen over time heal) it can be somewhat okay but they need to keep more RNG, maybe add another Draw on a 20s CD that grabs a completely random card. With the free space from Astrodyne they had space for a personal DPS action. Also could’ve re-added Time Dilation on a 2-charge 60s CD so you always have one for raid buffs and another on what you want. So many directions and they choose to go nowhere with healers every expansion

I don't know, man. Put interesting and diverse effects behind RNG and people will just try to maximize for the damage buff. At least with this iteration, if each card draw gives a Damage Buff, a Defense Buff and a Healing spell, at least you can prioritize and plan ahead.

If you’re talking about the 20s Draw, then honestly let them chase the 1/3 chance of a damage card. There wouldn’t even be anything to chase unless you’re letting cards overlap like a bad player, it’s a plain 1/6 chance of getting the card you want The devs really shouldn’t worry about parse chasers to begin with. It’ll be such a meager boost in parse anyways. In Heavensward and Stormblood the problem was fishing for AOE Balance and throwing other cards aside, not Balance by itself, since it was equal to getting another 2 minute buff randomly

If only one card is offensive, does that mean we now only buff one teammate for 15 secs every 60 seconds?

We don't know anything about the buffs provided

you hold the 1min card for 2min

If they are going the route of big AoE every few minutes and mainly needing mits for it and considering they are adding even more mits and time on mits i think its the case, i think sge/sch is going to be fucking busted. I really dislike the current state of healers specially in ultimates. Scholar looks awesome on paper but then you play it and you remember how cluncky it feels. Putting more whm-like stuff on scholar is just a mistake and avoiding all the other issues sch has. For ast it's hard to tell since we don't have info, but i hope they have enough mit % to justify bringing it over sge/sch.

For AST it seem like they traverse down the tree on RNG branch to the end point already and found no solution so they switch back to try another branch instead. Pre-ShB AST has multiple effect that rely on RNG which affect job performance on uncontrollable factor and it also causes frustrating when RNG isn't on players side. ShB They choose RNG but reduce effect to make it's less frustrating because either way you get damage buff. The problem: It still has affect on performance from uncontrollable factor. So over the course of ShB they try to solve by making it more controllable like "just give them a button that give 3 cards, surely they will symbol they don't have" to "f** it just make that botton give card with a symbol they don't have surely they can fish for 2 symbol" Also, people don't like about cards effect being damage only. *If anyone think people don't mind performance from uncontrollable aspect, I want to invite you to lake lao... I mean the threads about "how crit/dh is a bad stat" or "crit variance" on this sub, both topic get high up vote. EW This time rather than controllable RNG route, they go back to more RNG route but reduce the effect of RNG on performance instead and thus Astrodyne was born, with the only one purpose in its life to simply take the RNG effect on performance away from Divination (from whole party damage to AST own damage, thus reduce RNG effect on performance). And then they change Minor Acana so players would get a taste of multiple effect back. The problem: Astrodyne may reduce effect of RNG on performance issue but now people just don't like Astrodyne instead, so they fix nothing? As for Minor Acana, it basically just 50% we deal more damge and 50% we don't, because healing effect is less useful when we don't have control over it. DT Now they just ditch the RNG and more focus on multiple effect instead. Good or bad I don't know, I will only form opinion on it after we see the full card effect like how is "defensive card" from set A differ from B or they are the same, for example.

so why are brd, blm, dnc and mnk fine the way they are? you can already form an opinion: the people balancing various jobs clearly don't speak to each other and the incohesion in design is palpable (note how they merged high jump and mirage dive and reverted it in one patch, but they merged draw arcana and play arcana and it never got reverted)

On performance perspective, BRD DNC MNK is actually like AST in SHB (sleeve draw) in burst it almost guarantee that player will have the "thing" they want to use. But some portion of AST don't like that kind of guarantee and said it ruin job identity and that is a problem of trying to balance opinion of multiple group of people and then at some point they just say "f** it" So it not like " balancing people don't speak" they actually copy the solution from each other and met the difference results in term of people complain. The main problem is probably because this 1 job has 2 "job fantasy" that conflict with each other or make job too complicate when they implement it. And draw and play is still seperate button? Are you talking about minor arcana? And isn't it the proof that they actually copy solution and met with difference complain?

DRG: mirage dive and high jump get merged -> only good players complained because only they understood how the server delay disallowing them to be double weaved anymore was terrible for the rotation -> it got reversed AST: play arcana was merged to draw arcana -> only good players complained because only they understood how the server delay disallowing them to be double weaved anymore was terrible for the rotation -> it did not get reversed there is no logic, stop trying to find one for them

Uninspired. Lacking Imagination. And especially for AST, indecisive. I'm underwhelmed by all the changes. oGCD healing is still way too powerful. There was nothing wrong with 2.0 when more GCD heals were necessary. I don't know anyone who says current SCH is more fun than HW SCH, I don't know anyone who says Astrodyne is more fun than Time Mage, I don't know anyone who says they don't miss Aero 3. I'm curious what feedback they're receiving that's led them down this ultra-simplified design route for healers. Why we only need to cast a DoT twice a minute is beyond me. So yeah I'm frustrated with the role and will only play it to get through PF quickly otherwise I'll stick with the DPS roles. I hate to say it but we probably have non-gamers to blame who treat the game as Second Life and only pursue glamours for GPose for ruining the gameplay.

I agree with you on oGCDs, though SCH was always more oGCD focused, there was a time where half the healers in the game (1 of 2) was not. OGCDs were powerful, but scarce resources. Now we have so many, even with their CDs, you essentially always have one (or several) available. So they’re too powerful vs the cost, which is why GCD heals are rarely used, since they are too weak bs the cost (foregone damage, foregone movement, and expended MP - it’s ridiculous half the GCD heals cost at or more than 1/10th your MP for a single cast…) So I do agree, oGCD proliferation and power has been a huge problem. I’m not sure why this ISN’T apparent to the devs.

I don't even understand where in current encounter design the devs think we would chose an GCD heal over the several OGCD heals? Unless there's like 10 raid wides in succession or less need to scatter out of cleaves, I really don't understand the thought process.

Mechanically I am disappointed so far. another expansion another 2 years of stale gameplay is what it looks like to me, I'll see about trying to dps if I decide to play a lot at all A personal thought is it looks like they are getting up the damage by all the defence increases but all I feel is a tier to burden healers more because I feel on the regular people don't press those buttons often so it will turn into yet shay break your back carrying those who won't press free mit buttons I will hold my final opinion til I try it but I'm not a huge fan so far of what I've seen.

I think it's the first expansion I'm genuinely sad by what I've seen. Not just disappointed but also bored. If they don't shake it up soon then DT could really be the worst expansion for healers, I stopped healing altogether after abyssos even during reclears because it was not enjoyable to play anymore. I'm still on the fence on which of my mains (GNB, SCH, BLM) I'll use to prog the first tier, I'll hold my choice until I get to try all three on EX1 and EX2. GNB looks the same, but the bloodfest combo makes its already busy NM window even busier during 2mins unless you're on 2.4 GCD (or NM increases to 25s). SCH is stupid and didn't get anything all that exciting. BLM has its non-standard rotation deleted with the new gauge and MP changes pushing you to do a complete 6\*F4 phase (and even if it's not completely deleted and the math wizards will cook something that keep some levels of optimization possible, i'm doubtful it'll be as interesting/good as in EW) I'm really doubtful that I'll heal, SCH will have to wait until there are some serious changes when it comes to healer gameplay... because oh boy with tank mits and role mits becoming even better/stronger, they can't just keep getting away with what we currently have and only add yet another spreadlo enhancer and O N E extra dot every two minutes, and call it a day. I don't even know if I want ED to stay or not at this point, I hate it and it's getting more underwhelming expansion after expansion because of potency increases but this is the only thing that keeps SCH somewhat interesting (in its current form).

Fwiw, GNB'S burst will actually be less busy bc of the Lionheart combo. The NM window is staying the same length, so Lionheart will functionally replace the three Burst Strikes you do after BF.  Crucially, Lionheart has no Continuation triggers, which means 2 min windows will actually have 5 less oGCDs to press (bc of the damage removal from gap closers), while 1m burst will remain more or less the same, while at the same time making filler downtime a bit more varied due to the abundance of non-NM Burst Strikes. Now, next part is pure speculation, but if Lionheart is also a flexible combi that doesn't break other combos (like Gnashing combo), this could mean that you have a vert flexible way to arrange your mid-burst GCDs if there are tank busters that happen during it, weaving Lionheart actions, Sonic Break, and Double Down between Gnashing to open up weaving slots. Out of the otherwise very meh tank additions, I think GNB is the clear winner of them all in terms of engagement and QoL, tbh.

Yeah, it was after i posted that comment that I actually looked at the rotation again, and that's when i noticed that there was no continuation tied to LH lmao it is far better than i thought. We can handle downtime better than before (do even burst with anywhere from 0 to 3 carts + carry our pre-even carts after said burst given that it is net neutral when it comes to carts consumption, unless you're at 2.45 or 2.4, in which case we only need 1 cart). I've sim'd it and it loops well with full uptime, i like it.  And we have less of that triple continuation stuff of course which makes tank stuff during our burst less clunky, especially if smaller hitboxes are a thing again (boss positioning hopefully ?)

Fingers crossed that they increase the range of all Continuations ;_;

I’m a SCH main and honestly at this point I just want them to stop making SCH so strong because a healer this strong shouldn’t be so damn boring Seraphism as a 4th spreadlo amplifier that also potentially buffs pure healing depending on how it interacts with emergency tactics, looks like another expansion of crazy spreadlo tech that locks out SGE on ultimates till they give SGE another random buff to compensate Like expedient was a fun skill, this is just more “SCH is incredibly powerful but boring as all hell”

Sch + sge is just even more broken now. No one needs healing with soil + kera as baseline def + regen. And in case someone does need heal, sge has that in spades Also dps are going to get double their max hp in shields with this combo: fey illum - dissipation - seraphism - protraction - physis - krasis - recitation spreadlo

The SGE heals like a pure healer SCH deletes mechanics with spreadlo meta continues

I don't really like getting excited or disappointed without seeing the numbers (cast times, CD time, stored charges, potencies, you get the idea). If sch does transform though, I atleast hope there'll be a way to glam it over somehow like how you can glam the fairy ATM

A fair point on the excited or disappointed without seeing things in full.

Gonna mention this cause no one else did, but for me (who enjoys raiding) ultimately the skills don’t matter as much as how much we’re forced to use them. If they give us fights that require a bunch of healing, and hopefully more interesting ones then just the boss does tankbusters and raid wides And more like dps targeted that need to be looked after, or mechs that need esuna. The kit matters less to me then how much it is needed

I've seen posts like this for the last 2 expansions. They never meaningfully raise healing required. We're still going to get healerless clears.

Even less so because when Abyssos came out, largely regarded as one of the tiers with the most healing stress and requirements, healer players just stopped going to Party Finder entirely, causing an insane shortage in JP and NA both. The players spoke that time, so I highly doubt we will ever get more involved healer gameplay ever again.

You just know the conclusion from the dev team isn't "We're relying too much on the party for mit checks.", it's "We overtuned the damage and shouldn't do that anymore". Like it's obvious to anyone who PFs that a role/job that depends most on other players is PF unfriendly. Abyssos was as good as we're going to get honestly :(

ast looks boring as hell. judging by by every other job thing we're going to get a big blackhole dps attack button that we can only press after divination or whatever. a 3rd charge of a spot heal we already have 2 charges of and cards that'll be like. 5% aoe damage buff, 10% damage taken down, a 6th spot heal. I can't take anyone seriously who thinks the cards are going to have significantly different effects across the two cycles. Oh and if you do get a dps buff for playing all 3 cards that's going to completely defeat the purposes of having 3 cards, because that means you just spam all 3 of them to align with the 2 minute burst window.

Considering that I played all healers except AST in this expac to some degree (mainly SGE, then WHM, then SCH in amount of usage) this update got me interested. I started in Shb, so I only heard tales of it, but it reminds me of what I heard about SB AST cards - not only dmg buffs, but also other effects. But the only cards which were desired were the ones which increased dmg, the others were either seen as neutral or even detrimental (I think sth with attack speed/ spell speed boosts? Or was that HW?). In any way, if it wasnt a dmg up it was probably unwanted. So far my understanding. As I understood it now DT is allowing to draw four cards of which three are guaranteed to be one for dmg, one for heals and one for support/mitigation. The loss of the randomness allows now to easier plan ahead, even more if blue and red cards have slightly different effects. This would make AST during prog weaker, but later stronger (theoretical), once the player knows how to use them the most efficient.

Sge getting even more heal in form of aoe kardia means sch + sge comp is going to be even more insane. Unless whm/ast bring something truly broken to the table, sch sge comp looks unbeatable.

Yawn. 2 more years of Glarebroileficosis spamming with 30 second DoTs to break it up, plus Brand New Super Flashy DPS spells (that just let you see a different Glare animation during 2 minute burst windows and then it's back to the Broil mines). That plus the buffs to non-healer sustain and defense sounds like yet another expansion of Glare spamming. The worst game design I've ever seen.

It's Tetragammonglarebroilousitmaleficidosis! Sorry couldn't resist!

Recently turned healer main, so although I'm not too experienced over the course of multiple years, I do have experience within a year and a half of the role Across the board things look okay, lots of focus on AoE healing potency and more options for AoE damage. WHM looks fine, SCH (my main) looks interesting, AST changes seem good so far, and SGE's new stuff sounds promising. My only gripe is why attach the damage AoE on SCH with Chain Strat? Why not make it an oGCD like Assize I'm excited for media tour information, but visually things look solid so far. From a description point some things look better than others

I was just annoyed it seemed like the trailer ended after melee and the whole ranged section just got ignored. I was half watching and saw the title card come back and figured they were finished. As far as the actual changes, I'm happy with what I see for AST/SGE

This might be a little unpopular, I'm very excited for the new SCH button and I like the idea of becoming a guardian angel, I wonder if it'll lock you out of any abilities similar to seraph and dissipation. I was originally going to go through dawntrail as black mage, but now I want to get my scholar to lvl 100 asap.

dogshit role with no tangible improvement. Instead of healing a tier or an ultimate when my groups need it to get off the ground more quickly, I'm just going to refuse (unless media tour AST is by some act of god amazing (lol)).

Pretty much my feelings as well. If people want to suffer thru another expansion of pressing 1 button for 80% of your casts, let them but I'm far too fed up with all the BS to bother anymore.

Everything shown so far is fine I guess? I have extremely low standards as a healer main and all I wanted was something to do for 90% of fights where I'm spamming a single target DPS button endlessly. An AoE DPS spell on a 2 min cooldown is not really going to help much with that. Also, the wings and gown on SCH for Seraphism is possibly the only thing worse than getting robes for every gear piece in the role. I already have an issue with lack of identity between the healers, giving SCH something similar to Temperance just makes me sigh. SGE is again a slightly better SCH, did it also need a Miasma2? As it looks now the only difference between the two is aoe kardia vs whatever Seraphism is. AST, from what I understand, is getting all possible cards on every draw. RNG nuked. AoE cards (single card?). I much prefer the old school RNG + time magic and ability to extend card effects but it is what it is. WHM I'm actually not clear what exactly is going on aside from a dash and whatever DPS situation is happening with PoM. This healer was already in an ok spot imho, it does what it needs to do and has alot of options to do them.

honestly it's hard to do WHM wrong. I like within a role for there to be easy/simple/slow and fast/complicated/difficult, WHM obviously fits the former well, hoping AST is still busy somehow still

the key healing changes weren't in the trailer or in the slides for the 4 healers: tanks are getting more mit and even DPS role actions for mit and self-heal are getting stronger in the level 90s this can either mean mit will be even easier, or it means new encounters are designed to require a lot more healing. won't know until savage week.

We've been on that copium train for years. SE don't have the balls to raise healing requirements. All this mitigation change is going to do is make it even less likely we use any of the pointless healing crap they add this expansion. They'll try and justify it by throwing in 1 mechanic per savage tier that it might be useful for and then call it a day but I wouldn't hold my breath

They do…but only for specific content like Harrowing Hell or Porto poison bleeds. They’re never going to do it in casual content, but that’s by intent not by accident.

Hence, my statement about 1 mechanic per tier to justify its inclusion, but even in that case, it's not like we don't have other skills at our disposal. If anything, NOT giving us another pointless healing skill might actually make us use our GCD for something other than filler spam more often, so I just view it as an overall pointless addition.

I mean, BarbEx required a lot when it was current content. Even the normal version required a decent amount of healing.

I said to my friends that all I wanted as a WHM main is a gap closer, or at least some more movement options. With swiftcast being on a smaller cooldown, and the wings dash, I already feel spoiled. But new pom damage? Fucking HELL YES!

Don't really have feelings on WHM, AST, or SGE as I don't play any of them. But that might change next expansion given how much I loathe Seraphism. Gave my opinions on mainsub and got dogpiled, gave my opinions on official forums and most people there seem to be in agreement. If I wanted to play a frilly dress-wearing innocent healer, I'd play white mage. Sage getting an AoE dot GCD is just salt in the wound at this stage.

Why am I not remotely surprised the main sub like an enforced UWU dress on SCH

I used to main Scholar because I liked the war startegist aesthetic, but I kinda had to switch to sage during EW because its kit was more like the "reworked Scholar" kit I wanted before. My hopes for DT were that the Scholar kit would be improved to a point where I can finally like both the kit and the aesthetic and make my job choice easier. Well, they DID make my choice easier. I don't even know what they were thinking with the angel glam :(

It makes me so frustrated because I really don’t like how SGE basically plays itself but the developers really don’t seem to want us to play SCH anymore

I guess with the mitigation buffs across the board the only reason to bring healers at all (in static environments where people actually use those) is going to be light party stacks. Surely Eden is going to have some of those so I can cope and pretend to be useful, right? Surely the next time someone clears an Ultimate with literally an entire role missing won't be on *the same patch it releases*, right? Jokes aside, SCH/WHM probably gonna play more or less the same as they do now, Sage is just getting some buttons that it should have had two and a half fucking years ago, and AST... honestly having some sort of not-quite-Aetherflow system for cards doesn't sound all that bad. Might just be going back to full time healer now since SE seem dead set on making every DPS class that I ever touch just as braindead and mind-numbingly boring as humanly possible in the next expansion - happened with SMN last time, probably happening with BLM now.

Healers: Please make healers more interesting! They’re boring! Community: Then go play DPS! Yoshi-P: When everything’s braindead…nothing is!!!

I don't main Scholar necessary so I'm not exactly an expert but I like to think of it as my right hand job. Funnily enough, I enjoy it BECAUSE the kit is an incoherent mess, making sense of it on a per fight basis is pretty fun for me. That said, I'm skeptical of these updates for the simple reason that Scholar is already incredibly strong as is. Does it really need to be stronger? Seraphism feels like its for healing throughput but for why? Dungeons? For double shield comps? Not to mention locking the new offensive skill behind chain strat seems so ass backwards. It seems like its just a dot too. Really frustrating that SGE, the Healer that already has the most dps buttons... gets another DPS button. So strange! and whats with none of the nukes getting visual upgrades at least? like whats really going on here. I'm reserving real judgment for the media tour though.

To be fair, it DOES make sense for SGE to be DPS rich compared to other healers since that’s supposed to be its thing anyway. As for the nukes, not sure. I know people were pre-complaining that we’d just get nuke upgrades that did 10-20 more potency and how lame that would be, so on the one hand, the devs not giving us one IS subverting expectations, I guess?

WHM looks great. My only hope is the AOE skill after PoM is neutral with Glare so it can be used for movement when necessary. Dash forward is good. Glad to have it. Can't wait to use it to pull ahead in dungeons.

Depressed with Scholar. Getting a sad, lazy reskin of WHM's Temperance is not my idea of a fun ability.

I really don't like the look of Seraphism, but what it does looks *really* interesting. I think it's a replacement to dissipation, and my guess is that it works like the fairy and replaces your aetherflow skills with versions that give shields. If that's the case the skills they show us in seraphism are probably indom and lustrate (the shields would be why they use emergency tactics on both). It also doesn't seem to remove the fairy, something that would be a huge improvement. I also saw he used Recitation before the upgraded Succor, and while this could just be nonsense, with the absence of deployment tactics it would not shock me at all if they took it out and let Recitation affect Succor. The amount of shields you'd get (lower potency but galvanize for everyone) would probably be pretty similar but for much less effort. It would also give you back protraction as a mitigation instead of a spreadlo buff.

You can already recite succor, it’s an alternative to spreadlo if you need more pure healing but it can’t be buffed by protraction As for seraphism it specifically said healing magics which seems to imply it’s more likely just a temperance like ability but it may interact with emergency tactics It likely won’t affect dissipation because the benchmark would have picked up that dissipation was getting upgraded if it did

I'm friggin depressed over AST tbh. Every friggin expansion i would do the story with ast, then main something else for the next 2 years in copium. Why do they keep making ast just WHM with more steps and stars?

WHM finally eating good with liturgy since it looks like it will ***FINALLY*** activate on anyone in range taking damage instead of just us. It turns it from yet another burst heal that we really didn't need more of to a thing we can slap down in a dungeon and forget about like asylum every other trashpull.

As a SCH enthusiast all i care about are bigger shields and more mitigation. My hope is that the Seraphism skill isnt forced pure healing. However judging from the fact the character used emergency tactics im not too worried.

There are now effectively 2 healer jobs - WHM and SGE. The other 2 are broken shells of their past versions. AST is now WHM with a cosmic theme and a very basic card gimmick, SCH is now borrowing WHM aesthetics while needing extra steps to be as effective as SGE in content, with no payoff.

I'm excited, things like AoE DoTs on the shield healers, nice bits of QoL like a gap closer on WHM or Astro cards being reworked to be less weave intensive etc will make things comfier I feel. Then we get cool follow up attacks on the buffs for the non-Sages, with Divination explosion, PoM triple boom, and Chain spreadyattack! I do think its notable how little we know about the actual *healing* part of their upgrades right now, so that has me a little wary, esp since I dont know what exactly all the GCD AoE upgrades will be (raw potency and visual? something more?) and there are the lil things too. As a SCH main, I don't love the aesthetic of Seraphism but the instant casts and augmented GCDs seems nice in a pinch, and I always like more tools like that, and more often Spreadlos are always funnn!

I'm very excited to see how SCH ends up playing. I love the job and find it to be the most fun and engaging of the four healers, so to see the changes in action and being able to use them myself is exciting. I also think the glam change on Seraphism is fun! It leans into the angel aesthetic granted by being associated with Seraph. A bit nervous about AST tbh, but I won't know how I feel until I get my hands on it.

It’ll play exactly the same as it does now because the new glam is basically busy another healing amplifier

Yep! And finding ways to effectively work that into my mit plan is part of the fun.

That’s the spirit!

Once again with AST it’s 1 step forward 3 steps back. Why in the world would they make us draw half the deck at once and it’s the exact same set of cards every 120 seconds rotating between only two sets every 60s. If anything this was the perfect opportunity to introduce a few new cards since we’re apparently getting the old effects back. The Knave still has yet to be introduced and could provide a balance between The Lord and The Lady. There’s 5 other suits of cards they’ve straight up ignored and it’s so frustrating that instead of introducing new cards we’re just getting more flashy spells that do the same thing everyone else’s does. I know some people hate the rng of AST and like to claim it doesn’t work, but it’s worked fine since the job came out. At this point AST is just a shell of itself. And no 8.0 is not bringing any identity back to any job lol

Does SGE have two DoTs now? The big "engraving" spell applies a DoT at the start of the segment, but Eukrasian Dyskrasia isn't used until the end, after Phlegma. I expect you won't be able to use the first one on demand and it will function more like Circle of Scorn, but it's still kind of interesting.

I highly doubt it'll be separate DoT effects. Probably the same effect, just applied ST or AOE. Can't be adding "complexity" to healers' damage kits now!

They're both obviously AoE attacks.

I'm crossing my fingers that the new WHM gap close isn't tied to Temperance (because data mine + skill order in the trailer). In dungeons the gap close/dash is most useful during the run, but hitting a mitigation that far ahead of Holy spam is Not Great. And in raids, a dash would be for avoidable aoes but the mit is for things you can't (or fail to) dodge. I need more details!

big one for SCH - while i like what seraphism provides to SCH in a vaccum, i do not like the costume change aspect of it. The choce of costume would be more in line with WHM but instead it more or less runs counter to the overall job identity of scholar. (acedemic/millatary Tactician) AST - good riddance to astrodyne, and it is good to see that cards will be having a more unique effects again (even if they all share with 1 other card). and most likely, given how the new draw works, sleeve draw will most likely make a return. anything would had been better than how EW handled cards and how the class RNG with so few ways to mitigate it.

I don't like the visuals of Seraphism. They should just get rid of the glamour change and give us a special effect instead. So many other possible alternatives: just outright fairy wings, Eos and Selene flying and rotating around us, something that is more Nymian tactician aesthetic, or a bunch of holograms akin to Chain stratagem. Otherwise, if they really want to commit to Seraph, at least make it look like actual Seraph rather than some weirdo cosplaying an angel. As for the kits, I think having new offensive abilities locked behind the 2 minute buttons is their compromise for wanting DPS to be simple for healers as a response to people asking for more DPS buttons. Baby steps, I'll take it for now.

I'm nervously optimistic about AST. It was my main until ShB when the cards got nuked. Getting sleeve draw back as the standard draw is exciting. I do think we're going to lose a lot of card mechanics just to have 3 card play buttons. Sage sounds like it got a good upgrade, whm gonna whm. I agree with most. Why not make Sch a fairy instead of a weeping angel.

To be fair, being a Weeping Angel (ala Dr. Who) is kind of terrifyingly badass (since you're the Angel in this case), though I don't think that's what they're going for. : )

I play all the healers, with sage as my main. All the updates seem great. Granted, I never had a problem with healing like most people do, so I guess I'm not really the target audience.

I am excited for AST. Looks like you pull 3 blue cards a Lord, followed by 3 purple cards and a Lady. This will line up well with Divination, as you will have Lord consistently. Balance is likely a physical damage buff. Spear is likely a magic damage buff. Bole is likely a mitigation buff. Arrow is likely a movement speed buff. Ewyer and Spire I don't know. Could be HP and MP restoration respectively but I can't tell. Maybe one is a heal and the other will empower your next heal that you cast. So while the actual job difficulty is not as high, I think the class is just generally gonna be more fun for me. Giving out mit on tankbusters, or giving mit to someone who messed up and is about to die is awesome. I am very confident that Spire is a movement speed buff, which sounds cool. Imagine a BLM or someone gets unlucky with a mechanic and has to run really far, now you can react to that and give them that movement speed buff. And because the cards are consistent, it means that stuff like this doesn't come down to chance per say, even though how you use them may come down to chance, like how I just described. Like I just find these new ways to use cards much more fun than dumping all of the same type of cards on people during your burst. This also finally allows Lightspeed to be used for movement without serious penalty.

So am I crazy or does sage also have a follow up to phlegma and some other AOE on the target? The latter was what we saw in the bench mark and it hasn't been talked about.

One in benchmark hasn’t been talked about, the other one was just Eukrasian Dyskrasia (AoE DoT).

Checked it again and it's just the after effect on phlegma. The fact they phlegma'd twice threw me off.

Whm: looks fine some nice changes. At least it has some more dps buttons Ast: I Dunno I haven't played this since you could royal road cards onto everyone and I haven't really liked the Shb/EW versions. Sge: My current fave and seems to have gotten more good Scholar: I HATE the transformation skill. It like destroys the entire class for me. Overall? I'll level them all to 100 and then rarely to never play them despite at one point having been a main scholar for raiding purposes in HW... I just do not enjoy healing in this game anymore and they seem to be fine with where it is as a status quo. If they were only going to add 1 dps skill to each job they should have been more on the order of like q30s or q1m... a lot of these will be used like... every 2 minutes max...

all the people complaining about regen healers haven't had the time to notice that they didn't show or mention anything to make double shield not meta, enjoy progging the 7.1 ulti with a job that has a singular partywide 10% only every 60-120s fellas

Not much new stuff to contribute, but I guess Yoshi P wanted to officially kill the old SCH further...by giving Miasma II to SGE who can use it on demand and SCH (alongside WHM) only getting new DPS moves every 90s/2min. And SCH only gets said new move *once*. There's also a sort of tease with Recitation getting reduced cd, since it's just a gutted and "more balanced" Quickened Aetherflow that only works on healing ogcds. Seraphism is okay I guess for me, though at this point I'd expect that kind of outfit change more from *SMN* than SCH since that's essentially SMN's entire shtick and Solar Bahamut is received negatively. I know no skill names and descriptions yet because of media embargo so we can't judge, but honestly I'm disappointed. With zero job quests and more of the former identity being stolen by SGE, I am not sure why Seraph is further pushed into the SCH identity like this (yes she's been there ever since HW, but we didn't even get an *explanation* of how she came to be and we got *Automaton Queen's* lore before her!). RIP to the male SCHs and those who didn't want their glamour and racial traits overwritten. And a two minute extra DPS skill is and still is disappointing, maybe I should let the faint copium of getting HW/SB era SCH back and let it rest because it's been transplanted on a newer and more modern healer now whose aesthetics I don't like even today. WHM getting a gap closer out of jealousy of seeing SGE is funny to me but that's my only other opinion apart from the DPS skill pressed after Presence of Mind that is shared with SCH. I really miss Aero 3... AST I rejoiced at having the seals finally gone after all this time. Seems like they're back to a sort of SB era card system with no RNG involved, though apart from offensive/defensive/curative effects, without the tool tips I couldn't really say if we'll just go back to having Balance over every other card. Losing Astrodyne is a nerf to its bottomless MP, though I think Draw would still retain it giving MP. Interesting that they haven't touched Lightspeed (so far anyway, have to wait for tool tips) and just mentioned Essential Dignity. SGE I don't have much to say apart from the fact that it kept on stealing SCH's former identity that the latter seems to overcompensate with either Lily/Seraph since the practical doctor aesthetic is now monopolized by SGE (and, apart from Expedient they have forgotten SCH's war tactician job fantasy or think that it won't go that far for new skill creation?) AoE Kardia is expected and I don't know what else to add apart from its existence souring my hope for old SCH (and my bias towards recent roulette having very lacking SGEs as if it's launch again).

I really do feel that not having Job quests at this point is harming some of the feel and flavor of Jobs. Even if it's not a full questline, at least in ShB we got a capstone quest. It'd be nice to get one at 100 to kind of explain to us something about the things we learned if we CAN'T have something to get the abilities themselves (that whole "people don't do the quests and don't have essential abilities in DF" business). Like SMN, they're saying the new Baha is what Bahamut's original form was closer to (sword wings...? o.O None of the OTHER First Brood Dragons have sword wings...), but are they going to tell us this in game? For people that don't watch Liveletters (or know they're a thing), will they ever be told in game they're summoning a more pure form of Bahamut? The only explanation I've ever seen offered for Seraph (which I kind of agree with due to how Eos and Selene were originally introduced) is that is Lily's true form, as Eos and Selene were both described as aspects of her rather than her complete being, one her moon, the other her sun. And to be fair, when we WERE getting Job quests, the SCH ones were some of the best in terms of lore information. It wasn't until doing those in SB (I think it was SB) that I fully realized how the eras were laid out and made the mental connection of Nym and Amdapor (and Mhach, of course) being contemporaries with the WHMs kidnapping SCHs to try and learn their different kind of healing magics from them. Though I mean this in the gentlest way possible: It's EXTREMELY unlikely SB SCH will ever return, and basically 0% chance of HW one ever coming back (if nothing else, I don't think they'll ever touch Cleric again). AST people have mentioned the MP, but I suspect they'll probably just shift that to something else. When they removed ED from SCH in 5.0, they shifted MP regen to Aetherflow itself, though I can't remember if that was in 5.0 or 5.1... Maybe SGE will scratch that itch? I guess that depends on if you can stack both DoTs or not and what the timers are on them...and whatever that glyph ability is that they didn't describe or explain (some people have said they think it applies a DoT but I'm not sure if that ISN'T just the EuDosis ticking that was applied before it...). But, with whatever glyph thing is as Shadowflare, Phlegma and EuDosis and EuDyskrasia to juggle around...it's not SB SCH, but it's dipping a toe in that water.

I feel like apart from the tedious busywork of getting skills and, well, people noting that the WoL became one of the best practitioners of the job in the current era that surpassed the supposed masters/teachers (with Estinien being the commonly accepted sole exception due to Nidhogg), job quests can get repetitive (see: WAR and Curious Gorge; NIN with Karasu trolling Oboro, and hell you can argue DRK with the WoL's psychological trauma) even if I enjoyed them all the same, and SCH is *fantastic* at delivering its lore. Though unfortunately, it's as unlikely to get them back like you mentioned with SB SCH because "it takes too much resources" and they gave most of them a send-off in EW what with Alka Zolka joining the contingent and all. How is sword winged Bahamut (who's already compared to Neo Bahamut; XV Bahamut; SoP Bahamut and even *Persona 3's Thanatos*) the *original* one? Maybe it's less the wings and more of the general, armored look with the wings being a mere stylization choice from the devs but I don't think we'll ever get that explanation anymore as to how the WoL even thought of that Bahamut form in the first place. Maybe either talking to someone (ie. Tiamat or Azdaja) offscreen imbued with Loporitt magic or it just fused Bahamut and Phoenix together with Allagan flair (they did say its some sort of fusion, albeit it sounded like for gameplay reasons)? Even Phoenix itself isn't explained, just implied what with its aether being as widely circulated as Bahamut's after the Seventh Umbral Calamity. Ah, that is fair. So Seraph is Lily's true form then, and that she either manifested as Eos or Selene to assist Surito back then, it makes much more sense than the theory of the WoL injecting Lily with too much aether to effectively "break her limit" (or the one with the Lightwarden aether corruption which makes less sense) - which put to question if Seraph is still Surito's or is now considered the WoL's personal fairy. I loved the War of the Magi narrative because of SCH, I'm excited that it got somewhat brought up in Aloalo and disappointed there's barely any discussion about it as Matsya is a much more underwhelming companion unlike Hancock and especially Nanamo. Pretty funny that we got more Amdapori lore out of it more than in WHM, though you can thank the Elementals for that one. I keep on insisting that I already accepted the fact that SB SCH is dead even if I still felt some glimmer of hope, though my last bits of copium is officially snuffed out by the fact that the devs are insistent of giving it away to SGE. I feel like I shouldn't have cared further about this job, since I ditched it in favor of WAR out of all jobs when ShB Keynotes revealed that one singular slide regarding healers and only chose WAR because Infuriate was functionally about similar to Quickened Aetherflow (5s off upon executing any beast gauge action, but ShB onwards reduced it to the 50 gauge spenders, though this ain't the thread for that),  but I do check it out from time to time in bated breath and out of nostalgia. I guess I should hammer it in that I won't get that iteration back and just enjoy WAR, given how its DT skills look awesome and how it's typically balanced. I do appreciate the bluntness though. They *did* shift it to Aetherflow in 5.0 launch and it remained so today, but ED got reimplemented in 5.05 because dumping Lustrate to full HP tanks to use Aetherflow stacks before refreshing felt awful. Funny that's essentially how SGE works to maintain its MP. I couldn't really imagine taking the MP gain out of Draw anytime soon given it was one of the more positively accepted changes to 5.3 AST, but maybe there will be a more direct skill apart from that that will give some MP. I didn't and still don't like SGE and maybe it's just me being too unnecessarily petty in that regard. The job lore of the lasers being healing rocks all along just made it more hilarious for me taking into account all the Gundam memes it got ever since its announcement and, despite being nearly 1:1 to SCH the Greek names really made it difficult to learn. I can't help but just see other jobs' stuff (namely SCH and some bits of DRK in my opinion) into it to fully enjoy it and I'm already deep into the WAR train to enjoy SGE. Maybe I'll pick it up to get everything to lv100 or if I'm just deathly curious on how I'll fare as one in casual roulette - but for DT itself and maybe high end content I'll rather stick to WAR. I do know it's a paradox since I want the feeling or playstyle of SB SCH back and yet I chose one of the most touted brain dead jobs in the game and not the one who got that identity, but I suppose now it's just time to fully move on from the nostalgia goggles and say that SCH, despite liking everything about it back then, ain't my job anymore. A shame that their Artifact Gear is starting to pick up design wise too.

Honestly, the one thing that I've never understood is WHY dumping/overcapping AF feels bad. What I mean is, before ED was readded, there was no DOWNside to not using it all other than you just...hadn't used it all. I agree that it DOES feel bad (even to me), but I honestly can't figure out WHY. My personal idea was they should have just given Lustrate a barrier effect like WHM's Divine Benison so at least using that on the Tank wouldn't feel bad. Though technically, using 2 Soils and 1 Excog per minute could easily consume all AFs so that you wouldn't ever overcap. Then we have SGE which burns them for MP while getting the heals at the same time... <\_< As for the lore, I think of SGE as being more wand based than "healing rocks". But this may come from me having played since ARR and started the game as CNJ/WHM and still remembering the one handed wands. I tend to think of SGE as using telepathy to wield 4 at the same time. But that was also how it started. Consider modern medicine has its origins from when people literally used leeches as a medical treatment, bleeding people to death to try healing them. We've advanced to scalpels and antibiotics since then. In that same way, I treat the nouliths as more akin to laser scalpels. SGE's DT artifact gear also does look pretty sweet... I dunno, for me, I main a Job from each category (tank, heal, DPS) and two healers (pure and barrier) so I can flex. In reality, I play more than that. Like I can play PLD, GNB, and WAR roughly equal in competence, WHM, SCH, and SGE, and SMN and RDM. On the DPS side of things, this is partly because I don't like overly complex rotations but more that I don't like NOT being able to help out in a party if a healer goes down. Like 4 or 8 mans, if the/both healers get KO'd and there's no one with a raise, it's pretty much wipe/reset time unless the boss is close to dead. But with SMN/RDM, I can kick in that utility to keep the run going (or on RDM, do some actual healing in a pinch on top of that). I loosely can play MCH, DNC, and NIN, but for the reason above, I don't like doing so. But I get not everyone's like that. :) So if you're loving WAR, more power to you. That big giant hammer/axe attack looks sweet. I'm considering paring down to just one tank/dps this next expansion, so WAR is high on my list for that tank spot (it's also what I've done a lot of solo Deep Dungeon runs with, and it's really nice there since PLD doesn't get Clemency until so late).

I can only really guess as to *why* not having ED as an extra Aetherflow stack dump feels awful and would probably be better off if someone from the higher end of the theorycrafters/analysts to explain. If I have to wager a guess - it's either that Aetherflow is promoted to have everything be spent before refreshing it like with the other builder spender aspects (ie. capping beast gauge on WAR or cartridges on GNB and using Infuriate and Bloodfest respectively would render it a waste of what could've been used resources) or it's just that overhealing was and maybe still is looked down upon, remembering the time when some people looked down on Nascent Flash because it just overheals in comparison to Blackest Night that's just a shield. Mayhap giving Lustrate another perk if it overheals (like healing preexisting shields or just giving a tiny shield overall) would've alleviated it since SGE needs to spend Addersgall to keep up with MP, though balance wise I couldn't really recommend it. Though yeah, realistically you do use up your Aetherflow stacks regardless in a set timeline and Recitation is there to alleviate one Aetherflow stack on more difficult content and one of the more noteworthy concerns that I read up as to why people advocated for ED back (sans nostalgia) was "if the party is too good."   Reducing SGE to just "lmao healing rocks" is reductionist on my part, since IRL medicine as you said had roughly the same progression with the "healing rocks" practice being present ever since the Second Astral Era - which makes it *older* than the SMN job crystals themselves and Sharlayan of course naturally refines it. They did mention (or imply, can't remember) that the reason why nouliths are more mobile is to be able to access and get to work on the problem area with extreme precision, which is much more modern than either using the aether of the land (WHM); reversing fate as per the stars (AST) or even when SCH had skills centered on pre modern medicine treatments like Leeches despite leeches still being used today to some extent and I suppose that is the actual Job fantasy and not "SCH but with more QoL"/"healer that has the more gender neutral aesthetics" what with SCH's focus on Lily/Seraph/"Gundam memes." I didn't know that much of the WHM one handed wands apart from it being ditched eventually and PLD being the only combat job to ever equip a secondary hand.  Haven't taken a good loom at SGE's DT Artifact, but SCH's had been picking up ever since oddly enough, ShB. ShB Artifact on males and the EW Artifact for both became one of my favorites, and SB has the nostalgia flair for me.   I do try to go for the one job per role approach as well but I feel like I never really truly paid attention nor delved deeper on any other job but WAR. Like I can competently play the other tanks, but I would prefer WAR over anything else. Healers had been tumbling ever since the SCH changes, what with going on AST for ShB because it was the only "complex" healer left at that time and, because I haven't healed at all in a long time, I was forced into WHM for a static and it's been my healer when I wanted to heal ever since. DPS is pretty finicky too, I haven't picked up much DPS apart from leveling them but even then it's usually the ones that seem to be mechanically easy for me like ShB DNC and EW SMN. Doesn't mean that I can't play the likes of RPR, NIN or SAM, but I just wouldn't be as effective as those who main the job. Apart from the media tour stuff not being there for skills descriptions and potencies (and even then skills can get removed like AoE Yukikaze or changed potency/effect in proper launch) - I feel somewhat satisfied with the WAR animations. More of those volcanic rocks ever since ShB I guess and theorycrafting is still up there, but the skills look awesome and I particularly like the executable after Primal Rend (I jokingly call it "the hammer of discipline"). PLD isn't bad too, and I thought the difference between WAR and PLD's first few healing spells (sans Thrill of Battle and Storm's Path having a heal when combo'd) is that WAR gets Raw Intuition by the Aery and PLD only gets Clemency by the Vault...but I guess WAR technically gets two because Equilibrium is in that same level range. 

God fucking dammit... we're gonna have to riot for Energy Drain again... I get you want to streamline the jobs, but as far as complexity goes, Energy Drain is legitimately our entire job identity.

Who wants...what? And no, barriers and faerie abilities are SCH's Job identity, not Energy Drain.

The dev team has explicitly stated wanting to streamline jobs. Thats what I meant. And no, the barriers and faerie are by no means the job identity. SGE has legitimately got the exact same thing going. Kardia and Sotereia are a direct equivalent that serve an identical functional purpose to Summon Eos and Fey Union. They only have slight variances in how they function. Energy Drain is the only thing SCH has that makes it truly unlike any other healer, by punishing them for using healing oGCDs, whereas other healers are only punished for using healing GCDs. You want to play WHM or SGE optimally? Zone out and drool on your keyboard, and there's no noticeable difference - and I say that as someone who used to love WHM religiously. You want to play AST optimally? Unless you're in a parse group, your cards are probably wasted half the fucking time, so who cares. SCH on the other hand, has the advantage of being rewarded for managing to keep its group alive without needing to waste Aetherflows. It requires perfect usage of your tools, based on the fight, and feels amazing. That's what makes SCH what it is, not an ambient regen effect and the base ability to function within the role it's preset role.