(Serious) White Mage and Scholar are equally balanced.

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Originally Posted by Vlady

Because scholar having the hands down best heal in the game is really balanced? Give white mages a heal that is instant cast and isnt on a 5 minute cooldown then call it a day.

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You didn't really learn anything from http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...n-real-content now did you?

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Originally Posted by Vlady

Because scholar having the hands down best heal in the game is really balanced? Give white mages a heal that is instant cast and isnt on a 5 minute cooldown then call it a day.

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please play your scholar and be happy and don't try to destroy the white mage. this is an multiplayer game. it is the idea that the sch is better in single target heal, so the whm is better in aoe heal. we are supposed to combine the strengh of both classes together, not be good in everything.

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Originally Posted by Lorielle

Depending on what the SCH is healing, this is an exaggeration. Besides, why waste 6 Lustrates like that? Rather just let Eos do Fey+WD and Succor.

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Yes, a Scholar could do that but like you said, it was for the sake of comparison. Scholars are amazing single target burst healers and White Mages are amazing AoE burst healers.

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Originally Posted by Lorielle

That's like saying the SCH would have restored a Single target to max before WHM could get out a Cure II. >w>

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It is fair in a way. There are situations that shift resource management into catching up in heals vs. time/damage output. If you need the strength of a Cure II, Lustrate is generally better unless you have the time to cast the Cure II, but I understand what you mean. :-) I do admit that I left my post way too open for interpretation. I should have been more specific.

Anyways, I think Vlad thinks Lustrate is "the greatest heal" in the game as its an off-GCD heal that sees frequent use. I believe it's a great heal in how it helps catches up on healing between GCDs, which effectively puts a healer one or two GCDs above in healing. Though great, the Lustrate vs. Benediction comparison isn't fair either--haha. Reason being is that Benediction's main use is to reset healing to neutral* so that your heals can now match with the damage output. That's why it has such a high cooldown! Though people question why a tank would fall so low on health and the answer to that would be progression and/or mistakes.

Now I'm not going to go in-depth here as I see no point, but the way I see Scholars vs. White Mage is that they're both amazing, but the preference over one another is very situational.

Anyways... I think I'm just going to keep reading now since a certain someone is throwing statements and not backing it up with facts, theories and whatnot. *sigh* :(


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*The most basic way I look at healing through damage output vs. time until next damage vs. healing output vs. time until next heal. This is broken down into three levels: positive, neutral and negative.

Positive = Healing GCD is above damage output. This means you're ahead in healing and do not need to use cooldowns to "catch up on healing."

Neutral = You're head-to-head against damage. If you're not prepared for a tank buster or group raid-buster (a.k.a you need cooldowns and shields), then you may fall into the negatives in healing.

Negatives = Damage output is greater than your healing output. A great example is when you're trying to heal in Cleric Stance. *laugh*

Theres a lot of things my SCH can pull of in coil compared to my WHM, its not even comparable.

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Originally Posted by Parawill

Yes, a Scholar could do that but like you said, it was for the sake of comparison. Scholars are amazing single target burst healers and White Mages are amazing AoE burst healers.

[...]

It is fair in a way. There are situations that shift resource management into catching up in heals vs. time/damage output. If you need the strength of a Cure II, Lustrate is generally better unless you have the time to cast the Cure II, but I understand what you mean. :-) I do admit that I left my post way too open for interpretation. I should have been more specific.

Anyways, I think Vlad thinks Lustrate is "the greatest heal" in the game as its an off-GCD heal that sees frequent use.

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In response to the bolded -- on a tank, my cure II (unbuffed) heals for more than lustrate (on DPS it's essentially useless except as a panic button). Cure I is slightly behind lustrate but divine seal makes it slightly ahead. Neither of these spells have a 3 times per minute limitation, and a good WHM really should be precasting so the cure lands just as the damage does.

Not that lustrate isn't amazing in its own way. Emergency 75% burst restore but a SCH really isn't playing at their best if they're healing reactively like that. One of my personal favorites is to precast adlo (or even just physick if conserving MP) to land just after a decent to big hit and then lustrate right after that. So it's a heal and shield followed by another instant heal -- gives them back a big chunk of health and, well, shield is a shield.

Of course it also has the utility of being useable in cleric stance.

Similarly, Cure III can make those giga/teraflares seem like nothing. However, how often do you need to get topped up that quickly? Sure, there's a couple times, but illumination + rouse + WD can really take a lot of load off the white mage and handle stuff entirely if you've got a little bit before the next big raid hit. The catch is uptime. Once it's on CD, it's on CD; can't use it no matter how badly it might be needed.

Bottom line? What the OP said. You don't even need to make it single target vs aoe.

The healers are equally balanced.

To each his own I guess, I'm a WHM and can't stand playing scholar, I hate having to deal with the pet thing I just don't find it enjoyable for some reason. No offense to the scholars out there, I don't enjoy tanking or melee either as my main is Bard. On paper sure maybe one might be better than another, who knows, but I absolutely have no interest in playing SCH or SUM so to me even if it was a proven fact they are much better, I still wouldn't want to do it. I think like another poster said it's really about player skill, as that's really what matters the most, being able to predict attacks or see them coming and proactively heal and what not. There's more to it than just standing there hitting cure over and over and over. I'm sure eventually I'd give it another try, but leveling ACN to get to 15 for WHM was like torture for me. My good friend is a SCH and he has NO idea how to play at all, he'll be in a dungeon and people are constantly telling him what to do because he has the wrong carbuncle up or whatever it is. At the end of the day what difference does it make, play what you enjoy playing and just be happy there's choice of 2 healers soon 3 so everyone can do what they like the most.

You know what IS annoying? The damn 1000 char limit on this stupid forum, what are we conserving bandwidth or something!?

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Originally Posted by 416to305

You know what IS annoying? The damn 1000 char limit on this stupid forum, what are we conserving bandwidth or something!?

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It was originally implemented as one of several counter-spam measures. You can bypass the limit by editing a post. There's been several petitions to remove the 1000chr limit or make it more generous but, as with many such things, SE has ignored them.

Yeah I just cut and paste when it's too long, it's just funny that it's there as 1000 isn't overly long.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Bottom line? What the OP said. You don't even need to make it single target vs aoe.

The healers are equally balanced.

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Yeah I don't need to make it single target vs. aoe, but I thought it was something some people overlooked. Both healers work together perfectly as they both have different strengths (and weaknesses).

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

On a tank, my cure II (unbuffed) heals for more than lustrate (on DPS it's essentially useless except as a panic button). Cure I is slightly behind lustrate but divine seal makes it slightly ahead. (A) Neither of these spells have a 3 times per minute limitation, and a (B) good WHM really should be precasting so the cure lands just as the damage does.

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A. White Mage heals (excluding bene.) do not have a three use per minute limitation, but that's not the point. Lustrate is a great skill to have is because it's an off-GCD skill that doesn't require you to expend a GCD to catch up in healing. It's instant and is valuable in progression (and tank and/or healing mistakes) as it is a quick fix to damage wasn't anticipated. Of course Divine Seal + Cure Family is more potent and good White Mages should be precasting, but what this boils down to is that Lustrate > Cures in speed, especially in areas where you need certain levels of HP a.s.a.p. Thus, Scholars have the advantage of speed and off-GCD healing, whereas a White Mage is limited to whether or not to expend the use of Benediction or save it for a more critical moment.

(Also the 75% thing was just to be comparative to the usage of Benediction. Y'know, in case someone wants to pull out the Lustrate > Benediction card just because there are scenarios that favor Lustrate over Benediction).

B. There are multitudes of variables working against precasting, but in very good situations where my group is on-top of their game (this includes myself), I can precast and rarely fall behind healing. The times where I do fall behind healing are either:

• Mechanics requiring movement
• Tank missing (or using) cooldowns
• Taking avoidable damage (Love you lots, Megaflare)
• Burden of knowledge
• RNG Crit Damage (a string of them, like more than three)
• Positioning

Each situation requires me to shift how I heal as a White Mage and there are times where I'm just wishing I had another low CD version of Benediction because someone who needs to be at 100% takes some splash damage. The main one being is when a ranged DPS doesn't stack for a Cure III and everyone but that one person is not topped off for rage. So as a White Mage, I understand why people believe Lustrate is that awesome because I think it's amazing too.

(Note: I'm high-lighting a Scholar's strengths instead of a White Mages right now because I'm focusing on Lustrate. I am totally aware of how powerful our AoE heals are, especially our very potent Cures and our beast regen. Freaking love regen. <3)

P.S: Thank you for being respectful and dissecting (and reading) my post. I appreciate it a lot and it's making me think more! :o

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Originally Posted by Yona87

Theres a lot of things my SCH can pull of in coil compared to my WHM, its not even comparable.

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Yeah, but can your Scholar Holy in T13? Didn't think so. :P In all seriousness, yes you can DPS and I wont doubt you for being able to solo heal it; however, I don't think people will forgo the dynamic duo of Scholar + White Mage and just solo-heal with either of them or bring in doubles. Scholars and White Mages are too great together. :D

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Originally Posted by Parawill

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Lustrate and cure II are literally the same skills in terms of usage (and not lustrate = benediction like some people say), the only difference is how one is insta cast. Yes i know cure II has mp cost but that allows whms to cast it regardless anything while scholar is bound by aetherflow stacks, same way as any good whm will weave cure Is with cure IIs for that freecure proc making both lustrate and cure II require no mp. If we think about it, on a good fight, cure II won't be used more than 3~6 times per min

I actually love how a lot of scholars boast that their lustrate is instant cast, however considering how every fight on this game is telegraphed anyone should be able to predict damage income as you get more experienced with the fight. The real lustrate advantage is to heal while on cleric stance with the instant cast lowering the dps downtime and to be able to heal a target instantly.

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Originally Posted by mp-please

Lustrate and cure II are literally the same skills in terms of usage (and not lustrate = benediction like some people say), the only difference is how one is insta cast. Yes i know cure II has mp cost but that allows whms to cast it regardless anything while scholar is bound by aetherflow stacks, same way as any good whm will weave cure Is with cure IIs for that freecure proc making both lustrate and cure II require no mp. If we think about it, on a good fight, cure II won't be used more than 3~6 times per min

I actually love how a lot of scholars boast that their lustrate is instant cast, however considering how every fight on this game is telegraphed anyone should be able to predict damage income as you get more experienced with the fight. The real lustrate advantage is to heal while on cleric stance with the instant cast lowering the dps downtime and to be able to heal a target instantly.

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So your argument is that Lustrate and Cure 2 are the same skills in terms of usage, in that you use one when you need an instant heal while in Cleric stance, and the other you don't? :p

And I think the best comparable to Cure 2 for Scholars isn't Lustrate, but Adlo. Yes, I'm aware that Cure 2 has no shield component, and Adlo has no cost reduction proc, but when do you cast Adlo on somebody? When they are missing HP and you anticipate them taking damage soon - otherwise the shield is wasted. When do you cast Cure 2 on somebody? When they are missing HP and you anticipate them taking damage soon* - otherwise you'd cast a Cure or a Regen or just let the SCH fairy take care of it instead. In both cases, this can be a tank or a DPS or a healer, whereas Lustrate performs much worse than Cure 2 or Adlo on DPS or healers. Admittedly the amount of HP missing before the spell becomes useful is different between the two, but the strength of both spells relative to HP pools (and the cost of both spells relative to MP pools) is similar. Also, both Cure 2 and Adlo work only while stationary or swiftcasted, both are affected by healing buffs/debuffs, and both require a cast time to work (again unless swiftcasted). Conversely, Lustrate is usable on the move, couldn't care less if Twintania stacked Death Sentences left and right, and happens right now.

I do agree that Bene and Lustrate are two different abilities and directly comparing them is weird. I just don't think that Cure 2 and Lustrate are the same skills in terms of usage. Yes, you should try and minimize your casts of both, and you might use them roughly the same number of times in a minute, but the way you use them is actually different.

*Or if you have a Freecure proc, but that's a reversal of the norm - a free Cure 2 is more efficient than a Cure is more efficient than a normal Cure 2.

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Originally Posted by Yona87

Theres a lot of things my SCH can pull of in coil compared to my WHM, its not even comparable.

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And the same can be said the other way round as well.

I pulled a save off in T13 phase 4 after the OT died to the holmgang Ankh morn and SCH to the megaflare before Shaker/Tether/Tempest>Giga>shared Ankh Morn. You can see my healing dip in the logs as I raise both people followed by a sustained 3000-4000HPS effort over the next minute as I burn MP keeping people up solo through the following mechanics.

Could I have done that as SCH? If I was being lazy with my cooldown usage and had a few charges + aetherflow + fey illum in my pocket then perhaps. MP isn't likely to be an issue, and even when it is, I can usually play conservatively to get back on track within a minute or two.

As WHM? My cooldowns were a non issue (I didn't have DS in the situation used above) and I'm confident in my ability to pull off huge bursts of healing pretty much on the drop of a pin regardless of what CDs I have on tap. Instead the issue here is that if the same thing happened the following megaflare, chances are I simply won't have the MP to do the same.

As I've said many times, I fail to see the problem with this balance. The issue of course is that the vast majority of this game's content simply doesn't require anything like the raw healing throughput that I pulled there. I average 1200-1400HPS in T13 and have hit phase 3 with a 1900HPS average on occasions when the SCH has been an issue. By comparison, if I'm doing more than 500-600 in the likes of WoD it's usually a complete waste.

Just because *you* may not see content in which WHM truly shines, doesn't automatically make it a broken class. I'm confident I'll still be playing WHM when the push for 3.0 Savage Alex server firsts hits.

But if a SCH is always using Aetherflow stacks for Lustrate then they are wasting parts of their Toolkit. Energy Drain, Bane and SS are very valuable skills in the right hands and shouldn't be dismissed just because they aren't Lustrate.

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Originally Posted by Menae

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Adlo, personally, its in its own category (same for benediction and sacred soil). I understand why people compare adlo to cure II but i don't believe it's the most correct due to the shielding factor. Meanwhile lustrate matches cure II raw non crit power straight out (on targets with similar gear) and it's use in terms of "use when tank drops below a certain %" and how you have to use all 3 aetherflow stacks before you can use the skill again for more efficiency (same as using freecure procs), maybe on expansion scholars will get physick II and that will be a more correct comparison. But then, we're still comparing oranges to apples here.

Usage wise, adlo main perk is the shielding, unlike cure II, adlo is not meant to be spammed even on emergencies as that only burns through sch mp. Assuming no big hits, most people will just do a adlo > physick+embrace x2/1-2 lustrates (or let whm handle it while swapping to cleric for dps) > adlo once galvanize wears off or later on for another big hit. About precasts, adlo definitely needs a precast before a big hit, doesn't even matter if tank is maxed out or not.
Fairy reliability, that depends a lot on the fight and how much dmg people are taking, if there isn't much income damage, for example on t11 after seeds. 1 succor after the 1st hit usually lets the fairy top everyone no problem.

Scholar and white mages are not really balanced. I see 15x more scholars then I do white mages in duty finder. Ive gone for a streak of 7+ dungeons before seeing one white mage then its always another streak of scholars. Scholars are easier to play since its a 1.5 of a healer and if you slow down the pulls your pet alone can solo 90% of dungeon runs.

People will play which is the stronger job regardless of pro and con of each job. Scholar is just played more often since its stronger and easier to master then white mage. Has oh crap buttons that stomp on the white mage and with a pet that can heal for you even the most novice of healers can do semi decent since healing is so easy in this game. Back when ARR and lower gear level was the norm healing was harder but really its the easiest role in the game now.

Being a good dps and tank is noticed when things die faster and less healing is required with a good tank but healing is so dead easy now the difference between a good healer and bad healer now is just how high of a dps the healer can push since the healing aspect of the responsibility is well mindless.

If you want to do well in ff 14 even high end as a newbie player you can master healing within an hour. Every dps has 5-6 buttons you have to learn to weave properly with proper cooldown management. Scholar can do all extremes/dungeons off spamming physical.

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Originally Posted by Galdous

Scholar and white mages are not really balanced. I see 15x more scholars then I do white mages in duty finder. Ive gone for a streak of 7+ dungeons before seeing one white mage then its always another streak of scholars. Scholars are easier to play since its a 1.5 of a healer and if you slow down the pulls your pet alone can solo 90% of dungeon runs.

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I could say I see 50x more white mages than I see scholars in duty finder. It proves nothing, however. Like how you claim you see more scholars, other can claim they see more white mages. Heck, the contrary even mentioned in previous topics. There are plenty of reasons why one would go for one healer over the other for duty finder. Being lazy is one of them and this applies when queuing on either job. It's all between your ears.

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Originally Posted by Parawill

Lots of stuff about lustrate vs Cure

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I'll actually add even more to that. Even before factoring lustrate in, SCH's cast times are on the whole shorter. So, for reactive/emergency healing, I think that is a strength of SCHs.

But I'll still maintain the healers are balanced. They both have their strengths and weakness. I felt I pointed out a few examples in my first post on that topic and you added a few more examples with yours.

This is why they work so well together. Each healer can cover the other's weaknesses.

So why do we have to try to prove one as superior to the other? Why do we get people like a few pages ago that are really hoping to make one extinct?

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

So why do we have to try to prove one as superior to the other? Why do we get people like a few pages ago that are really hoping to make one extinct?

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I am captain basch fon rosenburg of dalmasca! Don't listen to ondore vlady lies!

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

So why do we have to try to prove one as superior to the other? Why do we get people like a few pages ago that are really hoping to make one extinct?

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This is why,
/toss purple scarves to the scholars.
/toss green scarves to the white mages.

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Originally Posted by Grug

This is why,
/toss purple scarves to the scholars.
/toss green scarves to the white mages.

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/toss purple scarves to scholars in alexander raid
/toss green scarves to the astrologian in alexander raid
*looks around for white mage but sees sign that reads "rerolled to Astrologian" where the white mage stood.*

I will not gloat nor nay say anyone if Alexander raid uses the current mold of two healers and the norm for alexander raid is scholar/astrologian. Only reason white mage even works is because there is room for the antiquated healer for another month and half.

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Originally Posted by Grug

/toss purple scarves to the scholars.
/toss green scarves to the white mages.

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Do I get one of each?

/adjustscarf

^.^

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Originally Posted by Vlady

/toss purple scarves to scholars in alexander raid
/toss green scarves to the astrologian in alexander raid
*looks around for white mage but sees sign that reads "rerolled to Astrologian" where the white mage stood.*Only reason white mage even works is because there is room for the antiquated healer for another month and half.

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Heres hoping you don't have to kill Bahamut first eh?

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Originally Posted by Vlady

It would not be so bad if I have not done about 30 duty finder groups being paired with another scholar in every queue minus 2 white mages but please allow scholar duo's to sync better in the duty finder queues or change the system to never pair scholar together please.

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Sounds to me like someone needs a whm along to carry him frankly.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Heres hoping you don't have to kill Bahamut first eh?



Sounds to me like someone needs a whm along to carry him frankly.

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At this point I think Vlady is just whipping up ridiculous, unsubstantiated statements for the fun of seeing what other reactions he can get.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Heres hoping you don't have to kill Bahamut first eh?



Sounds to me like someone needs a whm along to carry him frankly.

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And what does that have to do the bad shape that the White Mage is in right now? Honestly you should be supporting me since I am advocating much needed buffs to your job and the only reason I can even surmise that you are against being buffed is because you enjoy being the underdog. If that is what you enjoy then more power to you but taking my comments personally and trying to provoke me back with personal insults will get you no where in this game.

White mages are in a bad spot right now and if Alexander raids follow the motif of 2 healers in raids then you will either see people trying to accomodate 3 healers per raid or the white mage will be benched if they do not receive some decent utility buffs to make them worthwhile.

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Originally Posted by Vlady

White mages are in a bad spot right now and if Alexander raids follow the motif of 2 healers in raids then you will either see people trying to accomodate 3 healers per raid or the white mage will be benched if they do not receive some decent utility buffs to make them worthwhile.

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Baseless statements like that one are what make it difficult to agree with you.

Why are WHMs supposedly in a bad spot right now? They still seem pretty necessary to me. Any content that you would solo heal could be done by either Job, and SCHs don't pull amazing DPS without a strong, reliable co-healer, so....

Also, we know virtually nothing about how AST will actually play or how it will synergize with existing Jobs. Maybe we can start making educated guesses later, but right now it's just wild-ass speculation.

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Originally Posted by Vlady

White mages are in a bad spot right now

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Why? Because you can't Autopilot heal Haukke Manor on WHM like you can on SCH?

White mage utility is absolutely fine, they bring an extra source of virus/e4e, proshell and of course that trusty old 18% stoneskin that is virtually required to survive tank buster hits on progression content. Scholars bring superior shielding options to the table (at the expense of raw HPS throughput), a more versatile panic button (at the expense of MP regeneration and DPS) and some respectable if somewhat overrated spell/skillspeed buffs (at the expense of their primary raw AE heal). Full fat virus isn't really a factor since immunity prevents it from being spammed anymore whilst the E4E cooldown again isn't really a deal breaker either and imo are certainly not a fair trade for the much improved range of Medica and particularly Medica II.

If you disagree, then put down some cold hard facts and figures by all means (Preferably after you've actually cleared and understood the content your referring too).

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Originally Posted by Vlady

White mages are in a bad spot right now and if Alexander raids follow the motif of 2 healers in raids then you will either see people trying to accomodate 3 healers per raid or the white mage will be benched if they do not receive some decent utility buffs to make them worthwhile.

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U wot? How in Hell do you think White Mage is in a bad spot? They have the strongest raid healing in the game, powerful single target heals and absorbs, mana-efficient heal over times and improved passive mitigation through Proshell. The only thing that White Mage lacks is a better "oh shit" button (which isn't currently needed considering all fights are 100% choreographed) and better DoTs to throw up during downtime to improve overall raid DPS.

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Originally Posted by Vlady

/toss purple scarves to scholars in alexander raid
/toss green scarves to the astrologian in alexander raid
*looks around for white mage but sees sign that reads "rerolled to Astrologian" where the white mage stood.*

I will not gloat nor nay say anyone if Alexander raid uses the current mold of two healers and the norm for alexander raid is scholar/astrologian. Only reason white mage even works is because there is room for the antiquated healer for another month and half.

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You seem so sure that AST is going to oush WHM away.

You must know something everyone else doesn't about Heavensward. Please fill us in on all the changes coming for the healers and exactly how AST is going to function, please.

At this point I'm fairly certain Vlady is just trolling and is not worth to even debate/argue with anymore.
I don't believe there's somebody so bloody bone headed that even when the entire world is shouting "The sky is blue!!!" at him, he's still ignorantly convinced its some other weird color.

Or maybe I'm just overestimating human intelligence.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

You seem so sure that AST is going to oush WHM away.

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i would say the chance that the ast oush away the sch is much bigger than he will replace the whm. the whm has the (heal)power. we don't need two healers with buffs and stuff. whm has strong singletarget heal, aoe heal, HoTs and even a nice shield. so perfect for the job as a HEALER.

but for real: whm and sch are really perfect balanced. and so will the ast. and if one healer is better than another, they will nerf him or buff the others. like they nerfed the potency of medica 2 but doubled the lenght of the HoT, nerfed the potency of Holy, removed the thunder DoT crosskill from blm, removed the critbuff from cure 3, buffed presence of mind and stoneskin (they removed the delay between the cast and actual getting the buff)... hm, whm got more nerfs than buffs, strange...

btw the whm can sleep, weight, has a pushback attack, can bind the enemy and is the only class in the game with an aoe stun (on the global cooldwon so stunlock and yes - you can stun certain attacks from enemys (if you are good xD)). 15% mdef buff all the time up. whm can more than just healing.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

You must know something everyone else doesn't about Heavensward. Please fill us in on all the changes coming for the healers and exactly how AST is going to function, please.

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My uncle works for Square Enix, and says that Astrologians will have the best shielding in Barrier Stance, and their card buffs will add like 4 digit DPS when used properly!

I feel bad for all Scholars, knowing that they will be replaced like the cheap things they are. :( (Incidentally, I can give you guys cookies and milk as comfort food. Especially the Miqo'te.)

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Originally Posted by Zaft

The only thing that White Mage lacks is a better "oh shit" button

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Mate, have you even heard of Benediction? Divine Seal? Presence of Mind? WHM really gets lots of "oshit" buttons. They all seem like solidly, if simply, designed panic buttons.

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Originally Posted by AmewKitsune

Mate, have you even heard of Benediction? Divine Seal? Presence of Mind? WHM really gets lots of "oshit" buttons. They all seem like solidly, if simply, designed panic buttons.

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PoM and SoS aren't "ohshit" buttons at all, you use them just like a dps uses their cooldowns. Benediction not as much, but its great to use it to top a tank mid holy spam or to save it for a hard hitting attack (flatten/ahk morn for example).

Saving it for "ohshit" situations is when it goes off too late, people die and you get a skill on cooldown for 5 mins.

The latency and delay of Bene will always stop it being a true panic button. Whilst it is still usuable as such, it has a wonderful habit of arriving just a split second too late in those situations.

It's safer to use it to give yourself breathing room and prevent excessive risks if a tank buster or dps killing mechanic is about to hit and someone isn't topped for it.

I have s Scholar at Level 50 and a Whitemage at Level 50, I think both are equally balanced and both are equally fun to play.

I would say whitemage is slightly more efficient when it comes to group heals, it's in encounters like titan or odin, where they shine the most. The Scholar is a pretty bad ass single target healer, and the damage mitigation skills are extremly helpful for protecting tanks against massive hits from bosses.

It's like with Paladin and Warrior, both are pretty good tanks, but warrior is more efficient to tank a group of mobs, while the paladin is a little more efficient for tanking single bosses.
The only thing you could complain about is that there are more encounters that favour one type of healing / tanking (e.g. no aoe damage, no adds). But that has nothing to do with ability of the classes.

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Originally Posted by AmewKitsune

Mate, have you even heard of Benediction? Divine Seal? Presence of Mind? WHM really gets lots of "oshit" buttons. They all seem like solidly, if simply, designed panic buttons.

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DS and PoM aren't panic buttons, they're healing cooldowns that you should be planning out and using at specific moments in the fight. Just like a tank shouldn't be saving his defensive cooldowns for "oh shit" moments, neither should healers be saving their healing cooldowns for them.

Bene just suffers from long as hell delay and a dreadfully long cooldown. It's better to be used in conjunction with something decided beforehand (such as a WAR holmganging Akh Morn and you Bene'ing at the end) than it is to try to save somebody.

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Originally Posted by Lyzern

And if you think otherwise, you're dumb.

/thread

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The truth, praise it. \o/.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Why? Because you can't Autopilot heal Haukke Manor on WHM like you can on SCH?

White mage utility is absolutely fine, they bring an extra source of virus/e4e, proshell and of course that trusty old 18% stoneskin that is virtually required to survive tank buster hits on progression content. Scholars bring superior shielding options to the table (at the expense of raw HPS throughput), a more versatile panic button (at the expense of MP regeneration and DPS) and some respectable if somewhat overrated spell/skillspeed buffs (at the expense of their primary raw AE heal). Full fat virus isn't really a factor since immunity prevents it from being spammed anymore whilst the E4E cooldown again isn't really a deal breaker either and imo are certainly not a fair trade for the much improved range of Medica and particularly Medica II.

If you disagree, then put down some cold hard facts and figures by all means (Preferably after you've actually cleared and understood the content your referring too).

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Going to go through this point by point.

WHM bring:

Extra Virus/Eye for an Eye - so would a scholar. I don't understand this point. If you aren't bringing the WHM, you are either replacing them with a SCH who also brings these, but better, or a DPS/Tank, meaning it doesn't matter which healer has more utility since you aren't taking either in that party slot.

Proshell: Yep. While I COULD be super stingy and argue that the WHM doesn't even need to be in the party during the fight to grant the benefits of Proshell unless somebody dies, that's a real stretch of an argument. I concede this point.

18% stoneskin: This is a good thing, but it's not an 18% difference; it's only 8%, since a second scholar, or even a paladin, can still stoneskin.

AoE healing: No question. This is where WHM shine compared to SCH. SCH can still deal with all current content (as can WHM), but if you put them in a theoretical raid with heavy, constant AoE damage, the WHM would be invaluable. That said, I don't know that I consider healing to be a type of utility for a healer.

SCH bring:

Shields at the expense of raw throughput: I'm sorry, but what? I'm assuming you mean single target here. If a tank is getting murdered, a WHM's best throughput is Regen into Cure 2 spam. Similarly, a SCH's best throughput (ignoring Lustrate for now) is Adlo spam coupled with Embrace spam. Both are similar potencies. Yes, part of Adlo comes in the form of a shield, but honestly, you know what the effective difference between a target with 6k hp and a target with 4k hp and a 2k shield is? None. The only REALISTIC differences are that A) you can't heal somebody for more than their HP, but you can shield them, and B) that shielding doesn't stack. And it's true, Adlo doesn't stack, but if you are in a situation where the first Adlo shield hasn't run out by the time you cast the next Adlo, it's a damage environment where a WHM is not spamming Cure 2 either. So no, I don't believe that WHM have a significant single target healing advantage, because they don't. If I have misinterpreted what you meant and you were talking about AoE healing, then you have my apologies, and I already conceded that point above.

More versatile panic button at expense of regen and damage: You are looking at this backwards. It's not "if I don't Energy Drain I get to Lustrate." It's "if I don't need to Lustrate I get to Energy Drain." WHM do not have an analogue to this - if I don't use Bene for five minutes, I don't get a free cast of Holy that returns mana (Square, I have an idea for Heavensward). Furthermore, even if a SCH casts zero Energy Drains, they will still regen more mp than a WHM assuming their gear is even remotely comparable. Aetherflow is very strong, and it scales with Piety.


Skillspeed/spellspeed at expense of whispering dawn/magic defense/healing potency CD: First of all, I'm both shocked and appalled that you forgot the most important ability Selene brings - her silence! Kidding aside, this is actually an interesting point. You can either buff the party's damage, or buff healing. If you use Eos, you are kind of a pseudo WHM - you get a kind of Medica, you get a burst Proshell, and you get an AoE Divine Seal, all with longer CDs. If you use Selene, you buff the group's DPS, which is something that may be more or less useful depending on the fight and your party composition (more BLM = more Selene). I'd argue, though, that this is a good thing as far as utility goes, since it allows you to benefit the party in ways which aren't healing.

The real advantage SCH has over WHM as far as utility goes is DPS. A SCH can sit in Cleric's and retain access to both Embrace and Lustrates without stopping DPS. They also won't blow up their MP pool to do so, and they have fewer accuracy issues than WHM.

Now I'm not arguing that SCH are better than WHM, mind you, but I do disagree that the two provide similar utility. A SCH can benefit the party in ways which aren't straight up healing. A WHM is not nearly as effective at this.

Too much of a pain to selectively quote on my phone, but small point:

Sebazy referenced HPS, not single-target healing specifically; WHMs obviously trump SCHs in sheer healing power, which is of course how it should be.

Side note #2: Sustained DPS does come with an MP cost, even for SCH. This makes for a balancing act in fights like T13 where mistakes made by your team or yourself can instantly and exponentially increase the rate at which you bleed MP.

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Originally Posted by Menae

Going to go through this point by point.

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With regards to the raw throughput, I simply mean that without cooldowns, a WHM can fill those HP bars back up faster. Allow cooldowns (Aka lustrate) and it's pretty fair to say SCH has the edge on single target, but WHM wins on AE throughput by a margin somewhere between a fair amount (cooldowns and eos) and a landslide (no cooldowns and selene).

On the lustrate vs energy drain thing, lustrate isn't quite a free lunch. I had many an occasion in the opening weeks of 2.4 where I burned my charges on lustrates to save a tank or dps, only to promptly wipe the group because I couldn't place a soil for an imminent transition.

The DPS aspect is something I should have mentioned as yes, WHM suffers horridly from accuracy issues in coil.

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Originally Posted by Menae

A SCH can benefit the party in ways which aren't straight up healing. A WHM is not nearly as effective at this.

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The same could be said about PLDs vs Warriors, with warriors bringing better snap agro, better debuffs and more flexible DPS, yet people see double warrior in T13 and often run a mile.

A good WHM enables a SCH to maximise their utility and damage output in the same way that a good PLD allows a Warrior to focus on debuffing and DPS.

There is absolutely no way of seeing how Ast is going to mix things up until the job hits and people get a clear picture of how it's going to fit in the grand scheme of things. With what we know, it's all conjecture and you may as well say that it's going to make Monks redundant for all it's worth.