RIP WHM

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Originally Posted by mp-please

Yea I agree. Though to be fair we need another midas tier to actually test each composition, the creator is a tid too easy to consider any healer dead.

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I can agree in regards to a9/10, but 11/12 are both on a world of their own to heal.

I mean even in midas, the only comp that had problems was WHM/AST and with the AST changes this patch, it would have fared just fine back in midas progression (hard to say cause a8s j-kick without deploy hurts).

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

What is with this mindset of "buzz off, WHMs had their turn, it's AST's time now"? Are you really that petty? ALL compositions should be viable, that's what I'm trying to express. I say this as an AST main, even, who used to get quite the stigma from the parties I grouped with. I still remember how every Vault wipe was my fault, and every Thordan EX wipe was my fault. (I never even cleared that one because I got tired of the anti-AST bias with parties for it.) I STILL don't want WHMs to be left out in the cold of favor of ASTs. I want SE to fix their crappy healer balance, and work on designing future healing jobs to have unique playstyles and fill different niches, not just a "burst or mitigative" healer trend.

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I just think people are making a huge deal out of nothing with regards to the AST buff. You're right, all the healers should be balanced. Even if the balance isn't perfect any of them are perfectly fine to use right now, which is a good thing.

Also, no need to put words in my mouth. *shrugs* Take it as "buzz of WHMs" if you want, but that's not what I intended (I enjoy playing all three healer jobs). I simply stated that WHMs are overreacting, and that it wouldn't be a bad thing for AST to shine for once. I was just sick, at the time, of seeing multiple threads like "RIP WHM" / "SCH going to be replaced by AST" before the patch has even hit.

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Originally Posted by technole

White Mage has the least amount of raid utility of all the healers and hasn't been "needed" in savage since the 3.07 buffs. The job doesn't offer anything more than raw healing power and instants, which is perfectly okay. That is why raids take a Scholar as the off-healer for mitigation.

It's even a fallacy to think White Mage is a "safer" option than Astro. Diurnal Astro has better raid mitigation utility, up to 20% with Disable and CU.

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Ah okay. Just seemed like, at least until this patch, WHM was still heavily preferred over AST overall.

I find it strange that most people favour player class over player skill at a class. It's always one healer or another's death every patch but in the end you're better off taking a skilled player over a player who plays as the forums decided "meta" healer.

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Originally Posted by Ignnis

I find it strange that most people favour player class over player skill at a class. It's always one healer or another's death every patch but in the end you're better off taking a skilled player over a player who plays as the forums decided "meta" healer.

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Except this is a game where it's not hard to get enough skill to be competent enough to do well enough that all that's left is which job is set up best.

...and then there's the world first groups which of course are going to be skilled at either class, so again you're left with the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Evumeimei

Ah okay. Just seemed like, at least until this patch, WHM was still heavily preferred over AST overall.

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Nope, you're actually right.
Up until 3.3 and considering FFlogs numbers, you'd see around hundreds of WHM/SCH clears, a dozen of AST/SCH clears and a handful of WHM/AST clears (yes, WHM/AST clears existed pre 3.4 buffs). And those dozen of AST/SCH clears were usually by groups who had the floor on farm and were just boosting up their own dps for epeen, rarely there was a AST on progression groups since you'd be shooting yourself on the foot with one in the party, mainly for gordias at 3.07 with A3S being absolutely unforgiving.

What really was preferred is player skill. Ultros server first Gordias Savage clear was AST/SCH. The low amount of AST clears in Gordias Savage was because of early poor reception, and then you have the Eso job-only gear purchases so after the changes it wasn't an overnight change to just gear up unless you were already raiding in Savage to get cross-job gear. You can go back in this forum a year ago and see folks like myself and Staris, those whom raided Gordias on our server argue how good AST was in-places. It did still have some nagging downsides.


AST was really good in A3S. Synastry for solo healing hand of prayer/parting. Lightspeed is arguably the best healer cooldown for the x6 splashes, and disable is up for every cascade. The only real downside was to have some coordination for the hand of pain healer aggro. With the strict DPS checks we always had our main tank going Grit-less as much as possible. Even just having the SCH put up a few Succors to even the healing load manages it better. I always felt AST had unnecessary high aggro generation even with proper Aether use before, thankfully they finally addressed this.

In A4S With not killing straf dolls whirbelwind strategy (where everyone loses their MP). Having Assize was just an easier way of dealing with it. Every tier will have a healer that might have more luxury with it's skills than others. It's like the "But Cure III" argument in A6S/A8S. You don't need Cure III, and can Helios the damage. It isn't any harder, just a different way of doing things.

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Originally Posted by technole

What really was preferred is player skill.

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It's like the "But Cure III" argument in A6S/A8S. You don't need Cure III, and can Helios the damage. It isn't any harder, just a different way of doing things.

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first we are not talking about player skill here. we are talking about classes. for this purpose we ignore player skill and just think that the players are skilled to play their class perfectly.

so... if a skilled AST player can heal every content then the WHM is only for unskilled players? but when both players are equal in skill and can both heal every content, it comes down to utility. a dps class without utility but higher potencys is fine, because more dps is always good. a healer like the WHM without much utility but high potencys is another story, because more hps just lead to more overheal.

of course all 3 healers should be able to clear all the content. but if all healers are able to clear all content, the healer wich can offer the best utility on top of that is the better choice. and THAT'S the problem of the WHM. but of course the WHM is a really powerfull healer and more than able to clear all content.

the only strengh a WHM can offer is that he is easier to play and can burstheal through shit. so the WHM is for unskilled players and unskilled partys. and that's not really satisfying.

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Originally Posted by technole

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That's because every single healer has their strength on a different field. WHM uses less gcds (or even none) to burst heal while SCH and AST (check previous page for theory)uses a lot more making WHM a more reliable healer as it heals a fixed amount every single time it casts something. It's not just about "lol cure III" like you're saying, that's how the class whole class works with skills such as divineseal being a perfect match to almost every single stage of the fight that requires more aoe healing.
It's funny how you praise synastry as a better way of healing hand split phase on A3S and yet call assize just a easier way of dealing with adds. All healers could solo heal handsplit, i've done it as WHM, i've had my static SCH do it as SCH and AST could do it as well so in the end nobody cares about who does it better or who does it harder as long it's done. WHM was usually prefered for 3.0 raiding cause it added breather to a already tight fight and once again to the handsplit phase, a lot of groups manipulated the debuffs so the WHM would be dpsing during hand split due to POM+stone III.

For anyone that played tera, anyone will know the whole priest vs mystic argument back on early days. Mystic had around -50% healing than priest, it wasn't a neglectible difference like we have on XIV of just 15% ish, the main direct healing source was by mote picking up. Yes if the person was injured they would need to walk to the mote and pick it up to be healed with mystic single target heals being, well, not bad, but inconvenient. And yet mystic was considered to be the best healer on every single endgame aspect, why? As you progress into the fight the least damage will take so people will prefer a support class that increases the offense while still having enough heal power to carry out its healer job. Then devs baby'd priest with buffs and mystic playerbase died out but that's another story, just hope that doesn't happen in this game where a player population goes from 1/# of classes to <5% of total population.

Back to the topic at hand, it's not that WHM is bad, it's just suffering what tera priests suffered too. It's too good at healing so once fights become easier it will always be considered worse, but can a WHM heal any fight in the game? Sure it does even if not by the most efficient way and on fights where heal checks are tight the extra healing provides a good safetynet to the group allowing for mistakes to happen. And how did bluehole fixed this issue, albeit in a retard way that made mystics useless? They gave priests a potency buff and a mp regen move of their own while mystics had a crit/mp regen buff.

As main scholar, let me heal with a WHM anytime. I like looking at their medica II and regen helping me, it's so GOOD when I almost negate damage over big hits with a deploymentand we both save a large heal with their regens pumped with divine veil.

Ast is good, I have lots of fun when I use it, but all healing classes are good and complement each other pretty well.

truth is ast was supposed to compete with both whm/sch or not so much compete but play a pinch=hitter role as filling in when the raid was missing one or the other. However apparently scholars are just too impossible to compete with over a myriad of things, so they decided to just go the whm route. if any of you remember 3.0 and ast horrible potencies compared to both sch and whm for a moment, that perhaps the err was on either not committing to what was advertised, or fearing it would be too good otherwise to warrantt any comp besides ast/ast but i leave it off as this. it isnt any longer what it was meant to ne. Apparently sch replacement is impossible and so is balance and so, yeah its ogtta play whm neo for a while till they figure it out, Do I trust a WHM over a AST? At this moment I just want to not die to prey.

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Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

HP mitigated is HP that doesn't need to be healed. Just because it's not necessary doesn't mean it doesn't have value.

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One word: Mana efficiency.

Healing through damage is in nearly every situation more mana efficent than pre shielding, as long the incoming damage < full life.

Point 1 is: Small heals and HoTs cost always less MP per HP than bigger heals/heals with shield

Point 2 is: Pre shielding is usually done by heals with shield effect (exception: Stoneskin). In the most cases this heal is going to be 100% or close to 100% overheal. -> Wasted mana.

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

One word: Mana efficiency.

Healing through damage is in nearly every situation more mana efficent than pre shielding, as long the incoming damage < full life.

Point 1 is: Small heals and HoTs cost always less MP per HP than bigger heals/heals with shield

Point 2 is: Pre shielding is usually done by heals with shield effect (exception: Stoneskin). In the most cases this heal is going to be 100% or close to 100% overheal. -> Wasted mana.

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Note that the context for mitigation that I made was with diurnal AST being able to collective and disable to mitigate damage whereas a WHM cannot. In that case, while a WHM can get through heal checks through raw healing, an AST can do that with a combination of raw healing and mitigation. The following posts with math by mp-please shows that. Which is why mitigation and raw healing go hand in hand.

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Originally Posted by mp-please

It's funny how you praise synastry as a better way of healing hand split phase on A3S and yet call assize just a easier way of dealing with adds. All healers could solo heal handsplit, i've done it as WHM, i've had my static SCH do it as SCH and AST could do it as well so in the end nobody cares about who does it better or who does it harder as long it's done. WHM was usually prefered for 3.0 raiding cause it added breather to a already tight fight and once again to the handsplit phase, a lot of groups manipulated the debuffs so the WHM would be dpsing during hand split due to POM+stone III.

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Exactly, we are on the same page though. As I'm not trying to make it sound like AST>WHM Gordias, and I can surely point out where skills like WHM Assize was just perfect for A4S, that is just one area amongst many. I'm just saying progression wasn't the issue with AST, just some early factors (pre-3.07), including nuances with the job that led an underwhelming perception. This is just like the DRK vs. PLD debate in clearing Gordias. Either could do it, but one was deemed the more preferred because of it's DPS and magic mitigation package.

To this day, even more so with it's last two major patch changes, I still say it's a fallacy to say it's any safer to bring WHM over AST for progression because of topics like mitigation raid utility recently talked about in this thread. A good healer can make it work.

Back on A3S, yeah like you can't use Lightspeed for DPS, while PoM you can. So A3S hands on WHM you have that skill to help solo heal, or, better yet DPS with the SCH solo healing. We've done both before in our group depending on (messing up) the Digitius swap. That is what makes this fun about being a healer main, being able to experience what works differently on other jobs.

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Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

Note that the context for mitigation that I made was with diurnal AST being able to collective and disable to mitigate damage whereas a WHM cannot. In that case, while a WHM can get through heal checks through raw healing, an AST can do that with a combination of raw healing and mitigation. The following posts with math by mp-please shows that. Which is why mitigation and raw healing go hand in hand.

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Yep, and this is the point where AST makes up for the lesser healing regen potency, it's mitigation package with disable and collective used correctly, means less damage taken and less to heal. Plus disable is the only healer debuff that works on darkness damage which was abundant in Midas. SCH Virus doesn't even work for that stuff.