4.1 and us healers

Seeing this list:

Adlo's mp cost decreased
Role Skills adjusted: Addle, Apoc, & Mana Shift added


If they're role skills, does that mean all healers are getting them? Odd that they're listed under SCH, but that list didn't have anything for WHM or AST, so that could be why.

I hope they reduce Succor's cost as well because that's even worse.

It's kinda weird that SCH (or healers in general) is getting Mana Shift because I still find myself being the most mp greedy.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

Seeing this list:

Adlo's mp cost decreased
Role Skills adjusted: Addle, Apoc, & Mana Shift added


If they're role skills, does that mean all healers are getting them? Odd that they're listed under SCH, but that list didn't have anything for WHM or AST, so that could be why.

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I don't think so. My partner was on their discord while the live translation was going out so I was watching some of it update before I left for work. My thoughts is that the developers mentioned these role action adjustments it after they mentioned the SCH changes but the translator grouped them together due to the rush. We'll see if I'm mistaken.

I'm hoping someone goes through the VoD afterwards and puts a more detailed translation on the table after analyzing the dialogue in a less rushed way because there are a few things that made no sense to me from the quick translation. For example, the Discord mentioned that while under DWT for SMN Ruin 3 would become and oGCD but then on the following line mentioned instant cast and I'd like to see which one it is. While an oGCD is instant cast, instant cast can also be a GCD ability/spell (Ruin 2, Aero / Aero II, Bio II, etc.) so we'll see what the dialogue looks like once a more fine toothed comb is brushed over the dialogue.

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Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

I hope they reduce Succor's cost as well because that's even worse.

It's kinda weird that SCH (or healers in general) is getting Mana Shift because I still find myself being the most mp greedy.

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I think they mentioned that part for Arcanist, it would be foolish to put Mana Shift onto a healer, that's a recipe for disaster (and I doubt any of us would actually take it). Apoc and Addle, however...those would actually be really awesome on SCH.

EDIT: It appears somebody in the comments section of that Reddit caught the error. Those skills are having recast timers lowered. Also apparently Succor shields are going up to 150% of the healing amount! And both heals are getting MP costs reverted! PRAISE THE SUN! \o/

Yeah the cross-roles are just adjustments to casters, not added to healers. Surecast will remove the 5 second timer.

Succor goes to 150% healed amount, pretty fair.

Alright so with this new bit of info, Succor was 150/150 for a total of 300 potency. Now with it being like aspected helios noct sect, its now 150/225 for a total of 375. That makes it about 25 percent stronger than what it was and now noct helios is just 15 percent stronger (431.25>375) which should probably be how it is.

Now they did say there were more changes but we'll have to wait for the full patches note for that (wonder if lilies for whm or pi will get changed) Edit: Doubtful I should say but who knows.

Did they mentioned that one of the ruin mastery also affects scholar? Does that mean sch will get the same ruin IV procs?

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Originally Posted by IanR

Did they mentioned that one of the ruin mastery also affects scholar? Does that mean sch will get the same ruin IV procs?

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I could be missing something here, but SCH gets Broil Mastery, not Ruin Mastery. So even if they allowed Ruin II to proc something for SMN, it would never happen on SCH. At least I think. xD

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

I think they mentioned that part for Arcanist, it would be foolish to put Mana Shift onto a healer, that's a recipe for disaster (and I doubt any of us would actually take it). Apoc and Addle, however...those would actually be really awesome on SCH.

EDIT: It appears somebody in the comments section of that Reddit caught the error. Those skills are having recast timers lowered. Also apparently Succor shields are going up to 150% of the healing amount! And both heals are getting MP costs reverted! PRAISE THE SUN! \o/

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Well, I guess that's what I get for trying to get the information as early as possible. I still miss Virus (and Disable to a lesser extent when I played AST).

Oh god, reduced MP costs on Adlo and Succor and Succor gets a natural boost on the healing? I'll take it! (Although I still really want Succor to have the crit bonus, but, I'll take what I can get).

Are we heading back to 3.4 inbalance all over again.. Lets solve one problem and create two more for the entire role.

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Originally Posted by Jxnibbles

Are we heading back to 3.4 inbalance all over again.. Lets solve one problem and create two more for the entire role.

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I feel it's a bit premature to indicate we're heading back to the 3.4 imbalance until we see adjustments on the other healers (assuming there are any).

With that being said, I don't see anything particularly wrong with the current indicated changes. I don't see it affecting the players playing at the skill ceiling too much but will raise the skill floor is how I'm currently assessing these changes.

Now succor has the same cure potency and a 0.5s shorter cast time than AST's Aspected Helios!
If SE wants to pair the two spells after they change both aoe shields with same potency, why cannot they make the cast time same??

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Originally Posted by IanFrench

Now succor has the same cure potency and a 0.5s shorter cast time than AST's Aspected Helios!
If SE wants to pair the two spells after they change both aoe shields with same potency, why cannot they make the cast time same??

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Nocturnal Sect gives the AST a 15% bonus potency on their healing spells, thus making Aspected Helios (Nocturnal) still more potent than Succor. It'll probably also cost less MP than Succor too even after the Succor MP changes, I imagine. I find that a fair trade off.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Nocturnal Sect gives the AST a 15% bonus potency on their healing spells, thus making Aspected Helios (Nocturnal) still more potent than Succor. It'll probably also cost less MP than Succor too even after the Succor MP changes, I imagine. I find that a fair trade off.

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That 15% bonus is just a mere compensation for not having aetherflow or faries.

It is a bit premature but look at how the role has been changing do you expect people to not be extremely worried?

Also just because it looks like the changes affect the floor doesn't mean it won't have a impact on the ceiling as well..

Really hoping by 5.0 we see some drastic changes to this entire role.

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Originally Posted by IanFrench

That 15% bonus is just a mere compensation for not having aetherflow or faries.

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I'm not in the mood to compare full on kit vs kit ATM so let's ignore sect bonus then and stick to a single spell vs spell comparison.

Succor (currently) costs 2,280 MP. Aspected Helios costs 1,800 MP. This means Succor costs 26% more MP than Aspected Helios to gain an additional 0.5s cast speed. So, some food for thought - if you want your cast time reduction, you might need to get a MP cost increase to compensate.


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Originally Posted by Jxnibbles

It is a bit premature but look at how the role has been changing do you expect people to not be extremely worried?

Also just because it looks like the changes affect the floor doesn't mean it won't have a impact on the ceiling as well..

Really hoping by 5.0 we see some drastic changes to this entire role.

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I did say that it would affect the skill ceiling too, but just not as much as the skill floor.

And I feel people should be open minded about these changes at the current iteration. Think of the out cry regarding lilies and the like when it was initially announced and how everyone was screaming doom and gloom for WHM on 4.0 release. Yet, despite the counter intuitiveness of the lilies, WHM became quite the powerhouse in 4.0 due to the massive MP kit it gained from the changes it got.

Lillies are not strong still counter intutiive blaming boss design being heavily scripted based on cds, Literally the only good thing that happened to Whm was Thin Air this whole expansion. We only got so strong because Sch got hit so hard.

We can argue about this all day but I will agree we should wait till the patch hits live. Anyway my biggest worry is the Cross Role system and jobs copy pasting abilities. Really wonder how a 4th Healer could even be implemented.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

I'm not in the mood to compare full on kit vs kit ATM so let's ignore sect bonus then and stick to a single spell vs spell comparison.

Succor (currently) costs 2,280 MP. Aspected Helios costs 1,800 MP. This means Succor costs 26% more MP than Aspected Helios to gain an additional 0.5s cast speed. So, some food for thought - if you want your cast time reduction, you might need to get a MP cost increase to compensate.


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I don't understand why you think MP cost matters in this case, scholar has slightly higher mp cost at the moment and SE promise will reduce mp in coming 4.1.
And most important thing is, aetherflow returns MP constantly and faries' healing is FREE and automated.

Come on Ghish, that WHM thread was exceedingly important as far as development goes.

You know as well as the rest of us that the WHM feedback on lilies and Plenary Indulgence at the 20% numbers we were initially given was a point extremely worthy of discussion regardless of WHM's current standing - And the current approach to lily use as far as Savage goes still further emphasizes that they're really lackluster in general aside from prepping divine benisons, even with 100% proc chances. That outcry with the seeming lack of development time / focus it received plus the current game situation on top of the types of responses we got (And the insistence on the 'pure healer' line that we've heard so much since then) - it's entirely what people should have expected. They then went and reworked PI and proceeded to design savage pretty much around having places to fit in that ability specifically, as the skill was initially about as unreliable as everyone anticipated, even though you could get decent use out of it by, well, hitting more cures again.

WHM's strength in MP economy from spell cost changes and a few other changes + Thin Air doesn't make that thread's underlying issues invalid. The only thing we know is that WHM was not DOA on launch for other reasons - MP economy being a main one plus SCH's relative strength as well, but they should have learned a lot from that whole ordeal. It was pretty important for that rage and backlash to be channeled somewhere Square could see, particularly after how things had become since 3.4. I wasn't even around shortly after Midas till close to when Stormblood came out, but it was clear what the community perception had become - a developer-ignored job with their niche chipped further and further away throughout an entire expansion with nothing to compensate, leaving a very worried playerbase who had already experienced certain jobs having 100% cemented raid slots that had also been told by tons of other players that their concerns for the future were just invalid and WHM's just wanted to be overpowered powerhouses. When Square showcased what they did with WHM, the pot simply boiled over. They royally angered MANY WHMs out there and even if people don't have great solutions or are just ranting in general, the devs need to be aware when such a strong reaction occurs so they can re-evaluate their plans and decide if they want to tweak things. That was NOT a minor, daily forum occurrence, and all the doom and gloom posts should have been taken as, "Dear lord people are extremely upset" by development, which is important information for a company despite what some raiders might say.

And much of it could have been avoided if they had considered being a little more transparent and upfront about some of the changes (which we seem to be getting here, although as a mid-expansion patch there's understandably a lot less to cover). Instead, we got repeated lines about pure healer and "It'll be okay" which is not the PR response to soothe a sudden influx of troubled, concerned, angry players. They fueled their own flames with that instead of containing the fire.

That WHM turned out fine doesn't mean much here specifically because much more changed from what we were shown (including the MP costs of our DPS, if I recall correctly? Might be wrong there). Whether that thread influenced it or not - neither you or I will ultimately know. I'm in the camp that imagines way more thought was given to those tweakings after a 300 page thread suddenly popped up in the forum where our usual traffic involves a recycled healer DPS thread every couple of months that gains a couple of pages a week. Meanwhile, WHM is stuck with what is possibly the worst trait in the game at level 68 if you run the numbers on its proc chance vs cure usage in raids or dungeons + the actual proc itself and what it changes for a WHM (absolutely nothing). It's still pretty much trash if you calculate it with 100% cure spam. We coulda talked about that if we didn't have to spend a month on why the lily design we were initially shown was...not good.

I'm open to seeing changes in practice and this go-around in particular doesn't really bother me at first glance (and as you say there could be other healer changes we simply haven't seen, or maybe not), but when it comes to healer design and balancing approaches over the past two years or so, the last thing I've personally gotten from the team is a trusty sense of confidence.

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Originally Posted by Jxnibbles

Lillies are not strong still counter intutiive blaming boss design being heavily scripted based on cds, Literally the only good thing that happened to Whm was Thin Air this whole expansion. We only got so strong because Sch got hit so hard.

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Well, scholar was op in heavensward and needed to be adjusted. At the moment the balance of the healers is good enough and only small tweaks are needed imo. The jobs themselves need some QoL changes tho. For example the fairy of the scholar should be more responsive.

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Originally Posted by Jxnibbles

Also just because it looks like the changes affect the floor doesn't mean it won't have a impact on the ceiling as well..

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The ceiling trys to use adlo and succor or any cast for that matter as less as possible, which means changes to those casts will not affect the ceiling much.

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Originally Posted by IanFrench

I don't understand why you think MP cost matters in this case, scholar has slightly higher mp cost at the moment and SE promise will reduce mp in coming 4.1.
And most important thing is, aetherflow returns MP constantly and faries' healing is FREE and automated.

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You do realize that it's illogical to compare about two spells side by side with no other kit interactions, effectively demand that one spell matches the other without considering other differences in the spell and/or kit interactions, then start a counter argument around considering whole kits, yes?

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Originally Posted by Erakir

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A lot of posters were proclaiming that WHM would've been dead on arrival and that was the crux I was aiming for. In reflection now, we know that would've not been the case. Just to reiterate some of what you've said, Thin Air is amazing, the changes to Divine Benison makes it much more usable over Stoneskin, and the change from Shroud of Saints to Lucid Dreaming offer WHM much MP sustainability and removed WHMs one of two largest flaws - MP consumption. The other flaw I see is a lack of raid utility but to be fair, I'm honestly okay with this given high DPS and nigh infinite MP. S-E certainly missed the mark with both PI and Lilies on its inception but by removing the one critical weakness to WHM sustainability, they've pushed WHM to be a very competitive healer as a no frills healing bombshell.

My complaint towards that initial mess of 4.0-pre-release is people being non-constructive with their comments and spreading misinformation. I keenly remember a few posters doing ability counts and proclaiming that WHM kit continues to be pruned and pruned and pruned without having replacements. Yet when you get down to the nitty gritty and look at each kit logically, WHM did indeed have less abilities but not 10+ less abilities that some posters were proclaiming. It's information like this that doesn't give the developers good insight on how to constructively change things.

With the above being said, I do feel it's important to be continue to be critical of changes but at the same time don't start to second guess what could be happening until you get to see all the changes in their entirety. It's difficult to give a thoughtful and constructive response until we see the entirety of the changes. I am also be cautious about changes from the development team in the healing department due to these missteps that you documented in your post. However, I feel someone claiming that we're moving towards the healer imbalance that was shown in 3.4 does feel a bit extreme and premature at this juncture without more information.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

You do realize that it's illogical to compare about two spells side by side with no other kit interactions, effectively demand that one spell matches the other without considering other differences in the spell and/or kit interactions, then start a counter argument around considering whole kits, yes?

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Spot on. You have to look at the complete toolkit for healers and not compare skills for themselves.

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However, I feel someone claiming that we're moving towards the healer imbalance that was shown in 3.4 does feel a bit extreme and premature at this juncture without more information.

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As i recall they overbuffed ast for 3.4 on purpose with the reason that he was technically fine with 3.3, but most of the people didn't want to use the class, since he was not as good before. An practice often used in games. Could be wrong, tho. Was a long time ago.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

I'm honestly okay with this given high DPS

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In theory. On a training dummy. WHM could always theoretically outdamage SCH, but they've always been much closer in actual content than pure numbers would suggest. So SCH has comparable damage AND raid utility, seems fair to me. /s

Now that they fixed SCH mp costs on adlo we should be better single-target healers than WHM. Now they just need to lower Succor mp costs to be the same as WHM so we can at least match them in AOE healing and SCH should be good. Maybe give us something equal to Cure III also.

Indom's 500 pot/30s kinda makes up for plenary indulgence/assize but costs us an aetherflow stack while it costs them nothing except a 1m cd.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

In theory. On a training dummy. WHM could always theoretically outdamage SCH, but they've always been much closer in actual content than pure numbers would suggest. So SCH has comparable damage AND raid utility, seems fair to me. /s

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Prior to 4.0 WHM DPS was unsustainable due to MP issues; that's why SCH was the definitive single-target attacker despite WHM's greater burst.

SCH has an incredibly raid oriented kit, much more so than AST/WHM. In trade for how crucial SCH is to optimize a raid group, they lacked the ability to sustain raid health by themselves. This seemed like a fair trade off. My concern is that SCH will become all around too good at everything with more sustainable GCD healing.

SCH rivals WHM damage output, while offering only slightly less raid DPS contribution than AST, which actually feels a little problematic.

So, while SCH could certainly use a few QoL changes, the other 2 healers should receive some as well:

-Secret of the Lily II is still the absolute most garbage trait in the game and should be replaced with something else.
-The Lightspeed Trait is not useful, since Lightspeed is not an ability that is used off cooldown. If it comes up early, I still will just save it for when I need it.
-Stone IV and Malefic III should both see slight potency increases
-All cards should have a 30 second duration (looking at you Spear)

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

Now that they fixed SCH mp costs on adlo we should be better single-target healers than WHM. Now they just need to lower Succor mp costs to be the same as WHM so we can at least match them in AOE healing and SCH should be good. Maybe give us something equal to Cure III also.

Indom's 500 pot/30s kinda makes up for plenary indulgence/assize but costs us an aetherflow stack while it costs them nothing except a 1m cd.

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I disagree with this so much if you give Sch an aoe that rivals Whm what exactly does Whm offer? Remember Whm is suppose to be the "Pure Healer"

Our only Niche is Dps, and strong Heals. If you rival us in Heals we are absolutely useless may as well turn us into a Dps or delete us at that point.

Anyway the "Pure Healer" niche doesn't work especially when Astro, and Sch can heal just fine. If you want our Aoe and Gcd Potencies you better be ready to give up all your utility.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Prior to 4.0 WHM DPS was unsustainable due to MP issues; that's why SCH was the definitive single-target attacker despite WHM's greater burst.

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Sure, prior to 4.0, but we're past that now and it's still holding water to an extent. Now WHM and SCH appear to pretty similar with their personal numbers.

Despite Stone sea sky having a ~10% DPS advantage for WHM with the superior MP economy, for the various fights:

-WHM and SCH roughly share damage output on Neo with an edge to WHM. This is a fight in particular where I constantly hear that you become a "Green DPS" for long periods at a time, which ties into points below.
-SCH appears more often with than WHM on Exdeath, Hali, Catastrophe, and Alte Roite, but you still see both.
-AST is pretty much nowhere to be seen in comparison as expected.

Take these as you will as they're gonna be speed based, and most combined healer damage ones are using AST + SCH/WHM, etc etc.

Hali's gonna be annoying to deal with just cause of ninjas that can be used to pad.

The takeaway is obvious. Due to overall healing kits, damage kits, and expected playstyle in raids, despite a whopping 10% theoretical expectation from SE on raw numbers, WHM does not maintain that edge in a raid environment. Nor does it bring a nifty little crit buff.

It means that Scholar damage is ultimately more practical to maintain (or approach optimal) in raid environments and WHM does not have the stationary time to tunnel into damage that they need to see that 10% advantage. There are going to be tons of factors to look at for *why* that's the case, but such things will include WHM needing to spend 10% of its GCDs to maintain regen on a single target with reasonable uptime, having to make the choice to heal via regen or DPS via Aero when moving (and also only having the option to clip Aero, compared to choosing between Ruin 2, Bio 2, and Miasma 2). They will include the difference of maintaining DoTs with longer durations requiring less GCDs (SCH) than ones with more potency per second that fade quicker (WHM). They'll include the ability to dump Aetherflow into ED even though that's not necessarily the ideal way to spend a charge.

They'll include each job's role and responsibilities, as WHM and SCH don't exactly do the same things. It's a very long comparison to really do thoroughly, and I'm not going to try at the moment. It's even harder when you try to go digging for -real- maximization of combined damage which includes healers sharing healing burden whenever possible so they're both able to make use of their strongest personal DPS spells more often and not have one go into nuke spam while the other has to spam healing for 30 seconds.

I'm not really complaining, either - but the data's out there. WHMs are not pushing the damage difference SE has given them the potential to, meaning it's just likely not as practical to use enough GCDs on damage with the healing GCDs they're fitting in + mobility options. We're not the ones that bring a crit buff or raidwide mitigation, either. We do, however, bring the nuke that makes you KNOW we're DPSing. Ka-chunk~

Edit: And to try and be fair, on the flipside if you go looking at healing numbers themselves it's quite a different story as scholars are hard to come by, but that again has to take into consideration who's shielding and who's HoTting in comps and a whole other variety of factors like general utility. Plus you've got the bit that the better your group is, the less healing is required, so these numbers are often a show of who can put out the most emergency wipe-prevention sort of healing. The whole thing is messy and is part of why raw number comparisons are only going to show so much. It's just never as easy when you add in the variable factor of healing to try and compare these sorts of things. Ever.

Double edit: To re-iterate, this isn't a complaint, just an observation. If their idea is WHM should bring superior personal damage numbers in raid content due to a lack of ability to buff others' damage, then I'd say they should look into some adjustments since theoretical maximums aren't really being reached - but that's far from the only way to balance things, and like others I believe healers are ultimately in an alright state right now. Could be better - hence succor tweaks, Adlo tweaks, etc, but feels like one of the better periods that I've been playing in representation-wise that I personally remember.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

Now that they fixed SCH mp costs on adlo we should be better single-target healers than WHM. Now they just need to lower Succor mp costs to be the same as WHM so we can at least match them in AOE healing and SCH should be good. Maybe give us something equal to Cure III also.

Indom's 500 pot/30s kinda makes up for plenary indulgence/assize but costs us an aetherflow stack while it costs them nothing except a 1m cd.

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It's because of people like you that we're getting all this homogenization BS that is clearly making jobs like SCH less fun to play. None of your suggestions make any sense. If SCH has the same AoE healing as WHM, can push out very similar DPS and has the Faerie AND other utility on top of that, what is the point in WHM now? You can't just pick a job, add ridiculous buff suggestions to it and completely ignore the other jobs that compete with it. It's beyond stupid.

And as for Adlo's MP reduction, it will literally do nothing to add to SCH dps. All it does is make Adlo a little more accessible to the newer SCHs who can't grasp MP management as well. Any SCH that is raiding and getting decent results will literally not change their playstyle at all due to an MP reduction on Adlo. It's too early to speculate, as we don't know the final changes, but if they're not actually going to address Dissipation or Selene, then there's no real point to updating SCH with these minor things. SCH is already okay, and nothing mentioned in the Live Letter so far is going to make it OP in any sense.

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Originally Posted by Kabzy

It's because of people like you that we're getting all this homogenization BS that is clearly making jobs like SCH less fun to play. None of your suggestions make any sense. If SCH has the same AoE healing as WHM, can push out very similar DPS and has the Faerie AND other utility on top of that, what is the point in WHM now? You can't just pick a job, add ridiculous buff suggestions to it and completely ignore the other jobs that compete with it. It's beyond stupid.

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Agreed. Those suggestions were absurd.

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And as for Adlo's MP reduction, it will literally do nothing to add to SCH dps. All it does is make Adlo a little more accessible to the newer SCHs who can't grasp MP management as well. Any SCH that is raiding and getting decent results will literally not change their playstyle at all due to an MP reduction on Adlo. It's too early to speculate, as we don't know the final changes, but if they're not actually going to address Dissipation or Selene, then there's no real point to updating SCH with these minor things. SCH is already okay, and nothing mentioned in the Live Letter so far is going to make it OP in any sense.

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It should be a help to SCH players who are learning the job or are not at the high end content tier, because they'll be using Aldo and Succor more. If it helps SCH at that level (where I find it's the hardest of the three healers to play) but doesn't significantly alter the high end balance, that seems like a pretty good change.

The reason SCH are beating the DPS of WHM is because their GCD heals were horrible compared to WHM. As such groups are allocating the brunt of GCD healing on the WHM, while SCH just gives out whatever the fairy does and a few oGCD heals off AF.

This is why I'm advocating for buffs to SCH. If scholar becomes equal in healing to WHM in terms of GCD then there's a case to bring SCH/WHM duos and let the SCH handle the brunt of GCD-healing.

I think with some small buffs to WHM dps they have the potential to make up for astro buffs while still offering strong burst healing/GCD backup.

Also there have been countless topics on SCH's adlo and succor being too high. While I agree SCH healing is in a good spot right now it remains a fact that most players cannot handle an oGCD-only playstyle, so the fact that SCH healing can nearly match WHM with optimal play doesn't really matter. We also have to factor in the fact that fairy's embrace becomes fairly useless in o4s, which is a huge portion of SCH's healing.

Right now SCH's are in a situation where even if we wanted to main heal, it doesn't make sense, because hardcasting anything on a SCH is a massive waste of MP.

Either rework SCH by making them a pure pet/oGCD healer or give them the ability to hardcast heals. It makes no sense to keep both because DPS and hardcasted heals are mutually exclusive.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

The reason SCH are beating the DPS of WHM is because their GCD heals were horrible compared to WHM.

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This is incorrect. SCH has more oGCD heals than WHM on much shorter cooldowns, Fey Union, and fairy cooldowns along as well. You are also not considering the opportunity cost between WHM and SCH GCD usage. SCH will always be able to use more GCD for DPSing in any given scenario, and a reduction to the MP cost of Adlo/Succor will not change that play style. SCH is less effective at J-Wave style healing for a reason, so giving them potency buffs and more usage out of their GCD without nerfing how powerful their oGCD is would definitely be too much. SCH is fine right now and these upcoming changes in 4.1 are only meant to slightly raise the skill floor.

Not taking lilies into account, WHM has ~2200 potency worth of heals/shields every 60s. ~1150 of that oGCD pot is AOE healing.

SCH has ~1800 potency worth of healing every 45s. They can opt to reduce that to 1600 pot/45s via 2x indom to convert 1000 of that pot into AOE healing.

That means WHM, just using up 2 lilies/min gets nearly the same oGCD healing as SCH, but gets potentially much more AOE healing off asylum/assize/indulgence.

This doesn't even take into account the synergy of Benediction with war/drk, which can pretty much let you handle any mechanic with just 1 oGCD.

The other thing is that WHM has higher efficiency in all their offensive GCD compared to SCH. Aero II has superior DPS to bio II (the shorter duration is actually an advantage because you want to get off 350 pot hardcasts as often as possible over the 250 pot nuke). WHM also has a 20 pot advantage on their hardcasted nuke.

If they make Adlo/Succor equal to WHM it just becomes plain better for WHM to nuke as much as possible when given the chance due to their superior DPS. The only reason the WHM heals atm in a WHM/SCH duo is because Adlo/Succor is so ridiculously bad atm in its current state.

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Originally Posted by era1Ne

As i recall they overbuffed ast for 3.4 on purpose with the reason that he was technically fine with 3.3, but most of the people didn't want to use the class, since he was not as good before. An practice often used in games. Could be wrong, tho. Was a long time ago.

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They did, in an attempt to remove the stigma attached to AST since it's inception at HW's launch. For me AST was more than serviceable with the 3.07 though S-E continued to buff AST more and more and more until it became the powerhouse that it is now - all in order to get people to play a job with a negative stigma attached. AST being as powerful as was in 3.4 was part of the reason why WHM became excluded. The things they did with AST is part of the reason why I'm so cautious about any changes to the healer role.

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Originally Posted by Erakir

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I am in agreement with this assessment. SCH's ability to weave and move is so much higher than WHM that it allows SCH to play at their theoretical maximum much easier than WHM. And like you I don't think WHM needs much more - just potency adjustments if S-E chooses to go that route. Make these adjustments similar in vein to BLM where they're given huge potential ceiling but affected the most by dealing with mechanics.

With that being said, when you look on the site that shall not be named, there is a fair share of WHMs in the top 100 chart of each boss (I'd estimate a 35/65 split outside of Neo Exdeath). This is a rather substantial change from how SCH basically dominated the top 100 list for A8S and A12S.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

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The main problem WHM ran into in 3.4 is that anything a WHM could do, an AST could do it better while providing immense DPS increases via the power of Balance.

If we implement what you're suggesting, you'd basically be doing the same thing to WHM in 4.X - why even bother to bring WHM when a SCH can do it better than WHM.

I understand the logic but I disagree because it doesn't consider the fact that SCH + AST would then be better than every other composition (again) on both progression and speed killing. At least with how it's balanced now, there is choices players can make towards specific play styles with certain combinations work more optimally depending on which stage of progression a team is on.

No...I just laid out how WHM can have superior oGCD healing to SCH as well as superior offensive GCD's over SCH. You can already see an example of this in Neo Exdeath, where the fairy's embrace becomes fairly useless in terms of covering the needed healing - WHM edges out SCH for damage and is vastly superior in healing for Neo.

All they really need to do is buff SCH's adlo/Succor a bit and WHM's offensive damage by a little, and leave Astro the same. This gives SCH the option to handle the brunt of GCD healing by themselves, while also giving WHM's a stronger offensive role while still being able to being top-tier GCD healing when needed.

They've already given a role to WHM - they choose to either do the best DPS of all healers or the best HPS of all healers, but they can't do both effectively. The issue is that their hardcasted heals are so good right now that it's more efficient to just make the AST/SCH go pure DPS and have the WHM handle all of the healing.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

The issue is that their hardcasted heals are so good right now that it's more efficient to just make the AST/SCH go pure DPS and have the WHM handle all of the healing.

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I'm just going to address this part to show you why you are wrong. You mention healing through Neo Exdeath, so lets talk about Almagest. Theoretically, yes a WHM could sit there and spam Medica or Cure III, because they are powerful tools that they have which work, but that is far from being efficient as you are implying. As a SCH, I will deploy a shield beforehand and use both Fey Covenant and Rouse + Whispering Dawn (both oGCD). My cohealer can use their regen as well as Asylum (or CU if AST). The regen power, as well as mitigation from other party members (Addle, Reprisal etc), essentially means that you may not have to cast a single GCD heal during the Almagest ticks, allowing both healers to DPS freely.

The kits of the healers usually compliment each other. In the situation above, if party members still get dangerously low it makes a lot more sense for me to throw out an Indom, that I can weave in with Miasma II + ED, than it does a WHM to stop DPSing to hardcast a heal.

Before 4.0, the SCH Faerie was stronger and the majority of our damage came from DoT application, which allowed us to have more freedom to stance dance for DPS. So maybe back then it was more acceptable to have an "off-healer" role. Now there is no barrier to DPS, and every healer has CDs for different situations. To be truly efficient you will coordinate them with your co-healer to allow both of you to contribute as much DPS as possible. The notation of main and off healers simply should not exist anymore.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

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You asked for a equal to cure III.. You are now asking to buff Adlo and Succor. At the cost of Whms only having a single niche (DPS) at that point.. Do you really think they are going to let you keep your shields, Chain, or Fairy and be equal to us in potency? The Healer role is already suffering an idenitiy crisis and you want to make it worse by having Sch be on par with Whms Heal potency.

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Originally Posted by Kabzy

I'm just going to address this part to show you why you are wrong. You mention healing through Neo Exdeath, so lets talk about Almagest. Theoretically, yes a WHM could sit there and spam Medica or Cure III, because they are powerful tools that they have which work, but that is far from being efficient as you are implying. As a SCH, I will deploy a shield beforehand and use both Fey Covenant and Rouse + Whispering Dawn (both oGCD). My cohealer can use their regen as well as Asylum (or CU if AST). The regen power, as well as mitigation from other party members (Addle, Reprisal etc), essentially means that you may not have to cast a single GCD heal during the Almagest ticks, allowing both healers to DPS freely.

The kits of the healers usually compliment each other. In the situation above, if party members still get dangerously low it makes a lot more sense for me to throw out an Indom, that I can weave in with Miasma II + ED, than it does a WHM to stop DPSing to hardcast a heal.

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No where in my post did I say SCH weren't allowed to use oGCD's to complement healing. In your scenario the shield + regen automatically requires 2 GCD's. The goal of both healer duos is to minimize the use of GCD's, which means optimally a SCH should never cast succor when a WHM can use Medica II or Cure III.

Cure III/Medica II when used right has nearly the same efficiency as Succor + ET + Succor, and when combined with SCH's oGCD indom negates the need for SCH to even use any GCD's at all.

Given a certain potency required for a healing check, it's always more efficient for the WHM to cover any additional healing with their GCD's over the SCH when oGCD options have been exhausted. If the scenario doesn't call for any hardcasted GCD's then the point is moot anyway.

I think you guys are underestimating how good AST can be right now. I don't care how WHM/SCH get buffed, but imo the best way to go about it is to give SCH the GCD healing they've been clamoring for while increasing the DPS ability of WHM so that they both bring value to the party.

Obviously they could go the other way by boosting WHM healing even more while buffing SCH DPS but that would still force WHM's out because parties want more efficient DPS, not more efficient healing, after a certain point past progression.

Parties aren't bringing SCH because they're good...AST is the current auto-include. They bring SCH because SCH DPS + utility gives faster clears than WHM's pure DPS...there are some SCH's who go through an entire clear without casting a single GCD.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

In your scenario the shield + regen automatically requires 2 GCD's. The goal of both healer duos is to minimize the use of GCD's

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Well with Almagest it is often shielded because the initial hit alongside an instant damage tick can cause death when you're still not BiS geared. And I think most would still agree that each healer using 1 GCD each is better than forcing a WHM or AST to use 2-3 solo. Their DoT will still do more damage than my Broil 2, so again in that scenario you would be selfish to put the entire burden of it on one healer.

Not to mention that a spread Adlo is one GCD that is certainly not weak by any means.

As for the rest of the post, it seems like you're contradicting yourself. You acknowledge that the healer kits do synergise well together. SCH has great oGCDs that work well with a WHM/ASTs GCDs. So why then would you even feel the need to add what WHM/AST do well to SCH? By that theory you should give WHM chain, give them passive healing, give them 3 Tetras per min. It just makes zero sense to give one job everything.

Also since the balance nerf, AST is not an auto-include. No matter how much we may want tweaks to the three jobs, there's no denying that they are the most balanced they have been since ASTs introduction.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

I think you guys are underestimating how good AST can be right now. I don't care how WHM/SCH get buffed, but imo the best way to go about it is to give SCH the GCD healing they've been clamoring for while increasing the DPS ability of WHM so that they both bring value to the party.

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So... who is the "they" you're referring to? More GCD heals might well be the one thing I haven't seen SCH demand for. SCH healing strength is in the oGCDs, which we already have both the strongest and the most of; we don't need GCD healing as well.