HigakiRinne: Just because they didn't show some abilities in the trailer doesn't mean they're gone, they skipped a lot of stuff for time including stuff we know for sure isn't gone like Goring Blade or Astral Flow or Heart of Corundum

heyimbilliejean: On the card thing, they explicitly said you can "pick out which to use" (referring to the sequencing) in the live letter.

TheElix07: I have definitely been waiting to hear your thoughts on the healer stuff so thank you! Some things I observed from having studied this trailer very closely and I am interested in your perspective. As such, I'm sharing my tin-foil hat hypotheses here (apologies for the lengthy comment):

-It looks like Divination is going to 20s (assuming the timings buff here are consistent with what they will be in the final ship of Dawntrail). I noticed Brotherhood was also 20s. That makes me believe that they are opening all 2 minutes that were previously 15s to 20s, so it is possible to fit the extra buttons in. That said, I think Assize will still be sticking around too.

-AST card/mit healings might be like actually single target mit/heal up like protraction/krasis. Agreed that it feels weird that they’d tack this on to another stack of ED and CI which already exists, but I guess they’re trying to get creative with how the cards work with the kit now. I didn’t notice the order of play, but I fear they are changing it to be one button for play. Also thinking that AST mana regen will be more SCH like (still on draw every 1 minute so basically AF).

-My opinion that all healers are getting a follow up to their 2m/damage (in the case of SGE that doesn’t have a legit 2m), so the AST attack you saw is likely the follow up to Divination. I also think the SGE attack we’ve seen is just their new attack because Phlegma is also “free-floating.”

-It feels awkward to me that they would give regen healers another “big” heal as a pinnacle following Macrocosmos and Liturgy in EW, so I’m banking on them getting another party mitigation instead at the pinnacle (which is my current hypothesis for the final move on both WHM and AST). I think it might be decoupled from Temperance unless they have plans to really up the ante on damage out in DT. I also think they are considering more pure heals for shieldies a la party-wide Kardia and Seraphism.

-I think Seraphism is just pinnacle rather than a replacement to Dissipation since fairy is still around when they cast it.

-Agreed with your observation of E. Tactics giving instant cast adlo/succor. My hypothesis is that they are making E. Tactics provide instant cast in general. Maybe even some adjustments to what level you get it because low level SCH suffers from no real ability to aoe pure heal the way that SGE can.

One thing that I know we probably won't get until the actually deets come out is some of the QoL updates I wish they'd apply to SCH, but given your thoughts about how things skew more to SCH than SGE, I'm interested in your perspective. A long time gripe of mine is that Fey Illumination feels outdated and left behind in a world where SGE has access to a 30y regen in Physis that also boosts all heals in (instead of just GCD). Do you think an update to Illumination to increase all heals tips things too far out of balance?

defiantmars9910: I will continue to hope that all the Healers get a few more damage tools. Getting follow-up attacks like the Presence of Mind attacks or the Chain Stratagem DoT are nice, but that still doesn't help the earlier levels feeling somewhat stagnant, especially if Assize or Earthy Star end up going away. That's sort of the opposite direction I think most players would want, even with higher healing requirements.

WineRedEchos: what skill expression is there in rng cards? there's no skill in rng. "did you get lucky? no? skill issue"?

itsshauta: I'm a little sad about the RNG removal on AST, but I think I'm willing to sacrifice the RNG for more different card effects again

xthorlahx: Damn. No "LA vacation" for Lord Momo. Someone get me Yoshi's number!

albertobarberacampos451: What I don't like about Astrologian is that unless they do eliminate some of it's existing oGCD's, your skill bar is gonna be filled if we take into account the three different cards you get to play now, which is funny since they were very specific across the board about wanting to decrease the amount of buttons on most jobs, and yet it looks like now you are going to use way more buttons than before with AST, even if your actions won't be as "hard" as before since your cards are stablished already without RNG.

DeadEye935: I'm wondering if astro's lightspeed will actually be used for movement now that it seems like its burst window will be a lot less busy. I do hope you're wrong though about earthly star being gone, its such an iconic ability imo

For scholar, while seraphism sounds cool mechanically, I really feel like the look of it just does not fit scholar at all. Though scholar's whole aesthetic feels kinda confused in general. The wings just look a bit dinky and I think long white robes are more of a white mage thing

Kinda surprising that sage can aoe its dot and no other healer can. You're probably right that its not a separate dot, so I wonder how often it'll be useful in high end content.

I'm a pretty casual healer player, but I think the new stuff looks quite nice. I just hope we get fights that justify Astro having like a dozen single target heals though.

EclipseHighroller: If star is gone as it is now, that will be horrible. It’s the best looking skill ast has, even better than the galaxy move shown in the trailer here, and it’s one if if not the best healing abilities in the game. Star is gone = AST is majorly hurt on the verge of dead

chexrail: I can't help but be underwhelmed from AST tbh. Draw is no different from aetherflow now, its just each stack is tied to damage, a CD and a heal. This is an "illusion" of randomness which in itself its just a highly restricted aetherflow. Its really upsetting to see job identity be ripped apart and then hearing the cop-out "we'll individualize jobs in 8.0."

May 25 2024

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