unbalanced?

[Economizer]

WHM/SCH with those pants can pump out stupidly cheap cures and if it's three or more people needing healed then absolutely nothings beats Curaga III /IV.

Absolutely correct, although I'd say that the MP cost is fair. Curaga simply is the best tool in a White Mage's arsenal. Shoot, if the tiers weren't so nicely numbered (maybe lame argument with Curaga I), or we had actually gotten 100/50 for level caps (which Red Mages argued against) I think I'd would be arguing for Curaga III to perhaps be made subjob usable at 50, but dropping it down to 49 just doesn't look right and goes too far. If Red Mage had AoE spells outside of the joke that is Diaga (they should), I'd maybe suggest that maybe at higher level they could get tiers of Curaga (something like 46/61/81 or 40/83/96), since White Mage wears the pants in this relationship, and RDM wouldn't get IV/V.

As a bit of a counter to Curaga spells being all powerful, good luck getting the moon and the stars to align so that you're in the "tank" party and they actually are close enough together to actually all get hit by a Curaga, and they don't move (even with some cast time reduction, they will move in time to screw up a cure, or the guy you decided to target freaked out about their HP and moved away from the mob).

Only very elite setups will have the luck, communication, and organization to consistently pull off Curagas on any content that matters in such a way that the alternatives wouldn't have been better. Curaga's radius (despite being very forgiving for organized groups) is simply "too small" to simply spam and forget when you have 18 people, 2/3 of which aren't in your party, running around crazily with the notion that they have their own personal pocket mage. And so help you if there is a party without a healer in your alliance, because in addition to feeling depressed about Curagas not solving everything like they should, you now have to spam <stal> cure macros as much as you can on another party too in combination with another healer, and you don't know if they will be busy at the moment someone in the limbo party needs a cure or if you'll be overcuring.

SE's "regen buff" was straight off the RDM forums.

The Reflect suggestion that hasn't gone anywhere yet was from a WHM forum (in JP) for the record, but that didn't stop players from wanting it for "RDM only" (I think it should be shared between the two, but somehow I suspect it will end up going to RUN).

Again, RDM should get Regen III without any argument from SE, and should probably get Regen IV because there is no good reason not to.

Something on the order of 40~60HP/tick instead of handing out Cure V. Personally I liked this idea as it allowed a RDM to assist a WHM without over curing.

Short of getting higher tiers of Regen then White Mage this simply isn't possible outside of a different type of spell. Had SE given White Mage their rightful pants ages ago before merits were bolted down, Red Mage would have probably been the masters of Regen and White Mage would have probably never had merits in it or so much special gear for it.

Red Mage's problem is the same as always, what concept do they go with that hasn't already had some other job lay claim? If you can't do Regen, I'd imagine some party castable enspell that heals the player on hit... oh wait. If you can't do that then I'd imagine some spell that makes players heal for a stronger amount... and again, already taken. At best I could imagine Red Mage getting a spell that doubles the damage/cure of the next weapon skill or spell from a different player in some idea of "double cast" but how long until Mimes are added to FFXI just to block that idea?

SE's answer was to implement it as a buff to LA, which I could get behind until they made it SCH onry. SE should of made it work from sub but limited to the SCH's level, so +12hp/tick as /SCH.

I even remember SCH mains complaining on this one. I don't even understand the logic sometimes.

If you would have argued that a WHM can keep from pulling hate due to Cure Vs fixed hate I would have seen the argument. Curaga III/IV being able to cost 0 MP is great but they aren't hate free so unless you plan on tanking you aren't spamming them. Outside of being able to keep from hitting hate cap as fast as SCH (assuming the fight is even long enough for that) or procs I honestly don't see in what situation a WHM > SCH in the current game.

With the current enmity environment, so long as your damage dealers are doing enough damage they should be keeping at cap as well despite taking massive amounts of damage, so whichever one of them hit the mob last should be keeping hate.

When they change this we could see a bit of a snap downwards in terms of how much White Mages can cure due to enmity, particularly on physical damage heavy mobs that a White Mage can't take hits from. Curaga spells might still be useful on mobs that are primarily magic damage based however, since a White Mage is second only to Aegis Paladins for tanking constant magic damage.

On this idea, Curaga V has some weird enmity properties like Cure V/VI has, but it tends to overcure (pointless for an AoE cure) and cost a ton of MP.

SCH also is better in events like Salvage & Meebles where you are fighting many small mobs with a party. Regen keeps the parties HP up almost effortlessly which allows the SCH a ton of freedom with MP to either change arts and nuke, buff, or just heal someone who is super tanking. An example of which is when doing Salvage, on the first floor with gears we end up pulling the whole room most of the time, they party beats on 1 thing, the rest is on the puller. The SCH simply cures the puller when need be while regen keeps everyone else alive. These smaller events are where I think SCH excels over WHM, but against things that are 'bosses' WHM is obviously better, with the cureskin, cast time, and -aga spells WHM can keep up peoples HP much better than SCH & Regen can because of how hard the mobs hit.

Essentially true. Part of this is a result of Regen, part of this is the constraints of Curaga spells, and part of this is White Mage's lack of damage ability. And that doesn't even cover Red Mage's plight in this.

Scholar has a PR problem rivaling Red Mage's. It can often match and even outdo White Mage even without Embrava, yet all it is known for currently is the 2hour 1hour ability.

[saevel]

Econ,

SE's "regen buff" was straight off the RDM forums. During the various debates over how to make RDM a better "support" with Cure IV becoming nearly useless it was brought up to give RDM a super powerful healing over time spell. Something on the order of 40~60HP/tick instead of handing out Cure V. Personally I liked this idea as it allowed a RDM to assist a WHM without over curing. SE's answer was to implement it as a buff to LA, which I could get behind until they made it SCH onry. SE should of made it work from sub but limited to the SCH's level, so +12hp/tick as /SCH.

But it's SE, they really didn't want to see SCH "fail" and buffed the sh!t out of that job. Then finally gave it a super powered 2hr that we ended up basing entire mega boss strategies on.

[Demon6324236]

Thats not SCHs fault though, thats the players fault for refusing to look past the norm for anything. SCH is a great job for many events, yet people think without the current Embrava the job is worthless. People also think that Embrava will become worthless once it is 'nerfed', even though it has quite a bit of use, it simply needs a longer duration then what SE is trying to give us.

[Zagen]

Thats not SCHs fault though, thats the players fault for refusing to look past the norm for anything. SCH is a great job for many events, yet people think without the current Embrava the job is worthless. People also think that Embrava will become worthless once it is 'nerfed', even though it has quite a bit of use, it simply needs a longer duration then what SE is trying to give us.

I'd rather the player base not learn how awesome SCH is because that will lead to cries for more nerfs.

As to embrava becoming useless in the current "nerfed" state it's still used because it isn't useless it just requires different approaches.

[saevel]

Thats not SCHs fault though, thats the players fault for refusing to look past the norm for anything. SCH is a great job for many events, yet people think without the current Embrava the job is worthless. People also think that Embrava will become worthless once it is 'nerfed', even though it has quite a bit of use, it simply needs a longer duration then what SE is trying to give us.

SCH is suffering from the same situation RDM did at 75. It's "good enough" to do many things but there are other jobs better then it is at those things. There is never a situation where you need healing / support and magic damage at the same time. If you need healing / support you go WHM or BRD (COR gets a mention), if you need magic damage then you go BLM. Because of this SCH is only demanded in a situation were it's unique abilities are needed, namely Embrava. This is the same as RDM and CSS back at 75.

[Damane]

SCH is suffering from the same situation RDM did at 75. It's "good enough" to do many things but there are other jobs better then it is at those things. There is never a situation where you need healing / support and magic damage at the same time. If you need healing / support you go WHM or BRD (COR gets a mention), if you need magic damage then you go BLM. Because of this SCH is only demanded in a situation were it's unique abilities are needed, namely Embrava. This is the same as RDM and CSS back at 75.

I like to differ. In events like Salvage, Meebles, Nyzul etc. basicly lowman events, SCH shines with its capability to adjust itself best to the appropriate situation as a nuker, crowd controler, healer, debuffer. Not to mention that SCH/BLM is the best stunner in the game atm and its nukeing is not so far behind BLM. It is well rounded and just lacks usefull unique spells that matter. Buffing adloqium so you can get 5 TP/tic regain with 500 enhancing magic and makeing animus schemas worthwile would give SCH unique tools.

[saevel]

As a bit of a counter to Curaga spells being all powerful, good luck getting the moon and the stars to align so that you're in the "tank" party and they actually are close enough together to actually all get hit by a Curaga, and they don't move (even with some cast time reduction, they will move in time to screw up a cure, or the guy you decided to target freaked out about their HP and moved away from the mob).

I'm in the "tank" party on everything I do, and by tank I mean a collection of melee's actually contributing to the fight. All you need is three melee's fighting the NM to make curaga IV your best friend. NM does stupid move, WHM responds with Curaga IV and all is well. There is even an argument for two melees though it's more time efficient then MP efficient then. Otherwise light sprinkling of Cure III / IV is best. Cure V spam is for when you have on melee beating on something and you need to ensure your always under their hate level even after they get hit with a heavy attack.

The point I'm trying to make is that not only does WHM blow away everyone else in boss fights their more then good enough to handle all the running around. The only thing that SCH has on WHM is Embrava and aoe enspells / phalanx.