White Mage vs Scholar - Why is White Mage lacking?

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Originally Posted by Kyomih

Snip.

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I'm confused by what I just read. Did you suggest that a SCH needs to "anticipate" but not "know" the fight? How do you effectively anticipate without some foreknowledge? Or did you mean that it is the WHM who doesn't need to know the fight, because that makes even less sense to me.

Also, neither healer role should be played reactively. This is part of the popular misconception of WHM in particular. Yes, you are forced to react to mechanics and to other players' actions, but most players take "reactive" to mean exclusively "wait until something has happened and then patch it up" rather than "anticipate and then act accordingly."

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

I'm confused by what I just read. Did you suggest that a SCH needs to "anticipate" but not "know" the fight? How do you effectively anticipate without some foreknowledge? Or did you mean that it is the WHM who doesn't need to know the fight, because that makes even less sense to me.

Also, neither healer role should be played reactively. This is part of the popular misconception of WHM in particular. Yes, you are forced to react to mechanics and to other players' actions, but most players take "reactive" to mean exclusively "wait until something has happened and then patch it up" rather than "anticipate and then act accordingly."

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Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I was trying to say is that it's harder for a SCH to go into an unknown fight because we need to be able to anticipate more than the WHM in order to get full potential of our mitigation based play style. And yes WHM is a reactive healer compared to SCH which is a pro-active healer. Of course both healers need to know the fight but a SCH gets punished more if they do not have their mitigation tools up before something hits. A WHM can still cast Medica 2 or swiftcast a Cure 2 to catch up while a SCH has their lustrates which might not always be available. Which is again, a strong point for the fact that SCH has to know the fights and when to use our CDs in more detail than a WHM. If the players wants to play to their full potential that is.
Precasting Cure II and just interrupting when it's not needed is not really the same.

A WHM's most important tools are to patch up damage. A SCH's most important tools are to avoid damage.

I get what you're saying, but I can't agree.

WHMs are punished very badly for making mistakes; being almost entirely bound to a single GCD means that they cannot afford to mismanage their actions in tight situations, and simply overhealing to compensate (e.g. Cure II spam) will dump MP and eventually cause so much aggro that Shroud won't be off of cooldown before it's desperately needed again.

SCHs have a much easier time in learning phases since their MP-management mechanic is highly forgiving, allowing for heal+shield-slopping all over the place if you really must. I also don't perceive any lack of healing power on SCH except that SCH raid healing is unquestionably less efficient than that of WHM. Sacred Soil is barely ever needed and is reserved for very specific mechanics. Fey Illumination? Poor Eos collects dust 95% of the time at end-game, only let out of her cage once in a while.

Both healers must be played proactively if you want them to function at their highest potential. Whether you're shielding in anticipation of an attack or timing that Medica II perfectly with the boss' AoE, you are being proactive.

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Originally Posted by Kyomih

Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I was trying to say is that it's harder for a SCH to go into an unknown fight because we need to be able to anticipate more than the WHM in order to get full potential of our mitigation based play style

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It's interesting how you claim it's harder for Scholars to go in with no knowledge, compared to a White Mage.

Adloquium pre-applied, even with full HP, is never a waste. While 300 potency worth of healing goes to waste, 300 potency worth of shielding (900 on a crit) will always have some use. It's rarely the case that all 300 potency is a waste: There's always some fluff damage being dealt while casting. If some big hits come in and you're unprepared, a Lustrate is always the quickest way to patch up someone before the tank drops dead. Even without knowledge, the scholar kit helps you prepare regardless, although it may or may not be MP inefficient. But MP efficiency is rarely an issue for scholars.

So about the white mage going into unknown fights? While they can stoneskin endlessly, it's nowhere as fast or mp efficient. When learning fights, MP burn is much higher than when you are familiar with the fight. This will lead to complications that a scholar have more means to recover with.

Lastly: Scholar single target healing potency is actually not that much lower than a White Mage's. Cure II has 650 potency, Physick has 400. What is tend to be forgotten is that a fairy has 300 potency as well. Every 6 seconds a White Mage can recover 1950 potency worth on one target while a Scholar, with fairy, recovers 1800 potency worth as well. Assuming Regen is applied beforehand it's 2250 potency against 1800. If adloquium weaved with physick: 1800 potency shifts towards 1600 recovered with 600 shielding or 1700 recovered with 300. Plenty of other factors too: divine seal, Rouse, crits, weaving lustrates, possible whispering dawn, possible fey illumination and so on. But application of these are really inconsistent. Back to raw potency: Scholars are nowhere as far behind as the player base like to believe.

tldr; Scholar has more tools to perform snap recovery and has (near) equal single target healing throughout the encounter.

Edit: Had Cure II potency summed up incorrectly

Lots of valid points, but in fights where there is aoe damage the WHM can save the day more easily than a SCH.
SCH can deal with aoes very well when you are expecting them, but a WHM can be be "crap *party is down to 25%" C3 "all sorted" in one cast
However single target recover "which rarely happens due to fey always healing" SCH is king

tl;dr
take a SCH+WHM into new content and you will be fine.

With regards to "Which job needs to know the fight more", I'll leave the below extremely simple example:

SCH : I dunno the fight, thus I adlo alot:
1) Tank is mostly topped up, and has a high chance of having adlo prepped for big hits due to constant stream of adlos.
2) SCH mana goes down the drain.

WHM : I dunno the fight, thus I Cure II alot:
1) Tank is mostly topped up, but has no mitigation prepped for big hits, may just outright die from 100% from big hits.
2) WHM mana goes down the drain.

WHM : Well shit...guess I'll stonekin more then:
1) Stoneskin on a 9k hp tank = 1620 HP, and has a 3 sec cast time compared to 2 sec of Cure spells, your constant stream of Stoneskins will not outheal the damage from the boss, yeah sure you'll probably have stoneskin prepped for big hits, but what's the point of stoneskin if the tank is at 60% hp when the big hit hits.
2) WHM mana goes down the drain.

I haven't even touch the 3 "oopsie daisy" mistake corrector a SCH generally has every minute compared to the single "oopsie daisy" mistake corrector a WHM has every 5 minutes.

I'd say the casf timer on stoneskin is a bit long. But, aside from that, I don't believe Scholar has a real advantage of WHM overall. They're both required in many different situations.

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Originally Posted by Able

I'd say the casf timer on stoneskin is a bit long. But, aside from that, I don't believe Scholar has a real advantage of WHM overall. They're both required in many different situations.

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I think this thread has (hopefully) moved away from the question of one class being categorically better and more into theorycraft.

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Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine

300 potency worth of shielding (900 on a crit)

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Pardon for the off topicness, I've been meaning to ask this randomly for a while. The tool tip states that if Adlo crits, it doubles the nullification instead, thus implying 600 potency shielding.

Yet, I see this statement about shields being 900 potency thrown around so much it makes me wonder if I'm going crazy >.>;

Unless the tool tip is wrong and it's actually 300 + 300 * 2 = 900? @.@ Please let me know if I'm going insane or not. Thank ya.

@ Ghishlain

When you crit, the value you heal for/damage you deal is 1.5x
Thus when you crit an adlo, the original potency is 300, thus critical potency is 450.
Now the unique skill property where it states "doubles shield when crit" comes into play : the 450 potency is doubled, becoming 900 potency.

Hope this is clear enough :)