WHM getting progressively more unnecessary in content?

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

I dont think the raid population is large enough to base basically everything off of them. I hope they do things for whm because I love whm, and I havent started astro yet because that will be my last class to level. But these treads are like always only considering raid content when not even half the games population even raids I dont really understand that.

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Kind of missing the point. It's more along the lines of job balancing and there is an imbalance.
I don't want to see AST nerfed since they had it rough since 3.0 and they are finally in a good spot, I want to see WHM get something that makes up for the lack of cards, shields, fairy, mp regen, etc since all 3 healers are able to heal effectively.

Just a few ideas I see floating around:

Utility:
Devotion (Ability that was in FFXI): Sacrifice 25% of HP to give to a party member in MP
Esuna trait that has a chance to become aoe.

Mitigation (since no supervirus from Scholar or Disable from Astrologian):
Shell: Reduce magic damage by X% for 10 seconds for party members in range

MP:
Increase the amount of MP recovered from Shroud of Saints and/or Assize.
Stone trait that lets Stone spells have a chance to make the next Stoneskin instant and cost no MP

I have hope that SE will do something for WHM in 4.0 as they have said they want to focus on making jobs have their own uniqueness. We'll just have to cross our fingers and see.

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Originally Posted by Roll

Kind of missing the point.

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I totally agree but id also have to say skill level comes into play here as well, I have seen some horrible scholars, that think they can heal like whm in my own experience id much rather have a whm in a party than scholars only and this is suppose to be the op class. What I see happening is more scholars rely on their pets to do everything than anything, so I think your more average player can handle a whm more so because cure 2s potency is gona be the same regardless of skill. So yes maybe in raids with more mitigation needed astros are better, but in ur day to day content if you dont have the skill level to play scholar or astro Id much rather have a whm in my party. But like you said hopefully they will even things out esp if one of the new jobs happens to also be a healer.

Haha yeah definitely. Imagine a 4th healer and the amount of trouble balancing around that.

There's two sides of debates. You give your opinion, and someone can either agree or disagree with your opinion. We agreed that WHm is a fine healer, but we're in a disagreement that it's fine to stay like this as long as they can keep people up.
There's more to every other healer than just healing, and there should be more to a WHM too, unless they buff the strength of their heals so much their heals are hands down the best, which it isn't atm.

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

I get the feeling these threads won't stop until AST has been nerfed back down to their 3.0

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Don't be ridiculous. No one wants that.
AST was fine in 3.2, where their heals were strong and their buffs were decent but not broken.
Now the heals are still decent, but the buffs are insane. One needs to be knocked down a bit.

Remember when cards effects all lasted 15s? Perhaps it should go back to that. Or better yet 20s and you're able to extend it to 30s instead of 40s which is utterly ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

I totally agree but id also have to say skill level comes into play here as well, I have seen some horrible scholars, that think they can heal like whm in my own experience id much rather have a whm in a party than scholars only and this is suppose to be the op class. What I see happening is more scholars rely on their pets to do everything than anything, so I think your more average player can handle a whm more so because cure 2s potency is gona be the same regardless of skill. So yes maybe in raids with more mitigation needed astros are better, but in ur day to day content if you dont have the skill level to play scholar or astro Id much rather have a whm in my party. But like you said hopefully they will even things out esp if one of the new jobs happens to also be a healer.

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We're a little off-topic here, but I've always maintained the opposite viewpoint: if I'm going to be stuck with a terrible healer, I'll take the bad SCH over the bad WHM since at least the fairy is guaranteed to do something.

IMO WHM still requires a better sense of planning and strategy to play truly well as a healer. SCH and AST have higher skill ceilings with their more complex kits, but even an inexperienced SCH or AST can try to cover for poor planning with instant healing/shielding, while a WHM usually has fewer such options available at any given time and has longer CDs constraining their use.

Again?

Is literally all you do on forums is make anti-white mage posts?

I'm starting to wonder if you're just a troll. Multiple threads on multiple different forums bashing white mage saying it needs buffs even though you are presented with countless arguments that prove the contrary.

I don't mean to be rude but geez, get over it.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Again?

Is literally all you do on forums is make anti-white mage posts?

I'm starting to wonder if you're just a troll. Multiple threads on multiple different forums bashing white mage saying it needs buffs even though you are presented with countless arguments that prove the contrary.

I don't mean to be rude but geez, get over it.

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Bashing WHM? I'm just calling out it's faults and such.
That may come off as hating on the job but I'm not at all.

And there's really nothing out there proving that WHM doesn't need help. It's generally agreed on that while it's a viable healer, it's also the weakest healer by far.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

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I see no evidence of the OP bashing WHM.

It is actually kind of the opposite, they are pointing out the faults of it because they main it and want it to be better.

Also there has been little to no evidence presented that prove that WHM aren't the weakest healing job currently.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

Also there has been little to no evidence presented that prove that WHM aren't the weakest healing job currently.

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Correction, they are not the weakest. They have no party utility like the other two healers which made them less desirable.
The weakest in heals will be SCH > AST >= WHM (Strongest heals).

Proof will be FFlogs. Someone posted numbers between WHM and AST comparing healing numbers and party HP%. WHM is superior but AST is not far behind.

HPS doesn't matter. What really matters this is the first Savage tier in HW that all three healers are in-parity with similar clear rates. Compared to Gordias and Midas (even though AST was just fine in Midas from a healing standpoint, the improved QoL of the job attracted more to main it this tier)

Whine Mage....err White Mage is still in a good position.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Threads like these will never stop in any MMORPG where there are limited role slots and more jobs / classes than role slots. It's important for both the developers and readers to be able to sift through the zealots of any job and find the important talking points of any discussion. Making hyperbolic statements regarding the discussion doesn't contribute anything meaningful either.

I don't want AST nerfed back to the 3.0 era but I also feel strongly about how unnecessary the AST buffs from 3.2 and onward felt too and either ASTs need to be tuned back down to be more balanced or WHMs need to be tuned up to match AST and SCH. Of course, again, as re-iterated throughout this thread by multiple posters, any balance changes / additions most likely won't come until 4.0.

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I wouldn't say they were unnecessary, though people vastly underestimated them. What I'll never understand is why Balance got a buff. What Astro really needs is have its cards reworked to not essentially be "do I have Balance?" Regardless, I suspect that buff was to motivate people into playing Astro and things will change once Stormblood comes out. Unfortunately, content needs to require more healing if they intend on keeping WHM the de facto "main healer." That has been another issue with balancing the jobs. If you don't need raw healing, WHM just isn't going to benefit the raid to the extent Astro and Scholar will.

Think of WHM as the MNK of healers.

MNK: Great dps numbers on single target.
WHM: Great healing potency overall.

Both of these jobs lack utility. Not every job in this game should have utility. Some people prefer to be pure healer, pure DPs.
Being overpowered + having utility is just not right. Why would people bother playing other jobs if they have a very powerful job that has everything?

All healers are balanced, and all of them can solo heal content.
Some can do it easily and others have to work harder. In the end, all of them can do it.
It is up to the player and their skills, how they play around with the tools given to them in order to achieve something great.

A group with WHM/MNK can still clear content. They are not really useless or less powerful like what you seem them to be. If you want to have utility simply change your job.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

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This works better in theory than execution. A Monk doesn't DPS enough over a Dragoon to warrant the lost raid wide damage by not having Disembowel and Battle Litany. You may actually lose DPS overall because of that difference. White Mage suffers a similar issue. Nothing hits hard enough to warrant dedicated healing, thus Astro and Scholar can mitigate everything just fine while bringing vastly superior raid utility. Neither Monk nor White Mage are bad per se. They just aren't optimal for content right now. Monk needs to do slightly higher damage to justify bringing it over Ninja and Dragoon while White Mage needs to offer something else besides healing, unless content requires more dedicated healing.

Groups will still clear, absolutely. You'll just see large discrepancies on job preference. Last I heard, Dark Knight clears outweighed Paladin in Savage by over a 3:1 margin. The concern becomes longevity. As more people gravitate to the "better jobs," the less you'll see of those suffering.

Rather then put AST back into the dark ages, why not just buff WHM instead? On my main account, I've played as WHM since 1.0 and it's always been pretty boring. This is because the job itself across most of the FF games is also not very exciting either. Just as other classes have evolved in this game from their core elements in the previous titles, WHM should do the same. SCH and AST have their uniqueness outside of healing, and now WHM needs that same trait. Why they didn't change this for Heavensward is beyond me. But AST is a fun healer to play because of it's healing/buffing mechanics. SCH is fun to play because of the pet/DPS mechanics and flexibility. All WHM has sadly is healing. They've needed something well before AST was released.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

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This is exactly my point. DRG will bring more dps due to their utility.

Increasing MNK dps to make up for their loss of utility is a very bad idea.

As for WHM. They are already good at healing and dpsing.
Sadly, they cannot do both at the same time at endgame because it eats up their MP. AST and SCH have no problem with doing good dps while healing because MP is no issue for them.

In dungeons WHM is superior because they can heal and dps at the same time due to having breaks between pulls that helps them get MP back.

All WHM is missing is a way to get MP back.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

I wouldn't say they were unnecessary, though people vastly underestimated them. What I'll never understand is why Balance got a buff. What Astro really needs is have its cards reworked to not essentially be "do I have Balance?" Regardless, I suspect that buff was to motivate people into playing Astro and things will change once Stormblood comes out. Unfortunately, content needs to require more healing if they intend on keeping WHM the de facto "main healer." That has been another issue with balancing the jobs. If you don't need raw healing, WHM just isn't going to benefit the raid to the extent Astro and Scholar will.

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I agree with this fully an expecting a huge card rework myself in 4.0. I'm anticipating the removal of 20% Balance and also believe they'll normalize the AST healing spell costs too.

... man if that happens there's going to be a lot of salt on these forums for the first few weeks of 4.0. *Rubs temples* lol. . .

It's going to happen no matter what they do in 4.0. Heaven forbid a 4th healer get thrown in the mix.

I have to say I thought most tanks were whiny and entitled, but now realize healers may actually be worse.

I just started playing astro and I admit it will be a shared main along with whm for me but at the same time , what I dont understand about the games community why is it always pointed to what a job can do in a raid, like not even half the game raids. So therefore anyone with the skill level thats gona raid can play whm or any of the other healers just fine because they know what they are doing. Yes whm could use some defensive buffs but at the same time you cant point to one section of the game and claim that it isnt effective , because in my experience I have seen far worse preforming scholars, the op job in normal content than I ever have whm. And the community plays normal content raiding isnt even something that the majority of the player base does so it cant be pointed to the only way to look at a job but yet its all I ever hear.

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

It's going to happen no matter what they do in 4.0. Heaven forbid a 4th healer get thrown in the mix.

I have to say I thought most tanks were whiny and entitled, but now realize healers may actually be worse.

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In the end, everyone will complain about class balance regardless of how balanced the roles get, so that'll be a universal complaint.

Healer forum will definitely see more complaints overall though because Healer's also have to contend with the whole "Do healer's need to DPS" thing which just ends up being more complaints on top of the same baggage of class balance and etc. discussions that would normally murk other roles as well.

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

And the community plays normal content raiding isnt even something that the majority of the player base does so it cant be pointed to the only way to look at a job but yet its all I ever hear.

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I think this is because relatively few players who actually think about questions of job balance really care about it in the context of "normal" content. Fewer people care if a particular job is a little weak if they don't notice a difference in whether or not their duties get completed, and you're not likely to see players excluded because they brought the "underpowered" job to an Expert Roulette dungeon or something.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

Being overpowered + having utility is just not right. Why would people bother playing other jobs if they have a very powerful job that has everything?

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Except this is exactly what AST is. It can heal as good as a WHM, mitigate better (even in diurnal), can reliably DPS more and offers great utility.
This is everything a healer is capable of. And it can do it all.

Also I know a popular argument is that WHM si a simpler healer, but this is really not true. Just like Monk not doing that much more DPS than a DRG, WHM doesn't heal so well that it achieves something an AST cannot.
If WHM heals were so strong it completely simplified mechanics and raid damage that would be different, but 90% of the time they heal about as much as an AST does, with the difference in healing power only being shown on paper, not in use.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

Except this is exactly what AST is. It can heal as good as a WHM, mitigate better (even in diurnal), can reliably DPS more and offers great utility.
This is everything a healer is capable of. And it can do it all.

Also I know a popular argument is that WHM si a simpler healer, but this is really not true. Just like Monk not doing that much more DPS than a DRG, WHM doesn't heal so well that it achieves something an AST cannot.
If WHM heals were so strong it completely simplified mechanics and raid damage that would be different, but 90% of the time they heal about as much as an AST does, with the difference in healing power only being shown on paper, not in use.

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I've already said AST is the WAR of healers now.
WAR can hold aggro, DPs and self heal efficiently (He can do it all).

Doesn't mean WAR and AST should be changed. Not many people play them to their full potentials, but they can make wonders when played well. Nor does it mean other jobs should be brought to their level.

WHM is only missing MP recovery. That is the only thing that will really fix them.
AST and SCH have no MP issue compared to WHM. Give WHM a better way to get MP back and they will be healing+dpsing, then no one would mind having them.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

WHM is only missing MP recovery.

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No, WHM is also missing utility. Look at everything unique the healers can do outside healing or dealing damage. AST has Disable and Cards. SCH has enhanced E4E and Virus, and Sacred Soil. WHM has... Nothing. This isn't even including fairy buffs or shields. Give me am example of something a WHM brings to a party that the others don't and I may change my opinion.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

No, WHM is also missing utility. Look at everything unique the healers can do outside healing or dealing damage. AST has Disable and Cards. SCH has enhanced E4E and Virus, and Sacred Soil. WHM has... Nothing. This isn't even including fairy buffs or shields. Give me am example of something a WHM brings to a party that the others don't and I may change my opinion.

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But why does it need it the job of a healer is to make sure nobody dies and the party doesnt whip and do some dps and whms can do that with ease

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

But why does it need it

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Because the other two healers can heal and DPS just fine as well. Why would anyone take a WHM if an AST of equal skill is available?

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Because the other two healers can heal and DPS just

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What this thread should say is in Alexander content, because that,s what its referring to which as I pointed out earlier not even half the game participates in. Because nobody is doing a df or anything else and getting upset that a whm is in their party. And if we are talking about skilled players then a skilled player can manage whm mp and do well with the class also. If we arent talkin bout skilled players and ur more average players I,m willing to bet its far more average whmages than their are scholars because everyone cant play scholar and ive seen it many many times. I just recently got my astro to level 50 yesterday and I will share maining it now along with my whm but what whm offers is burst damage. But Im pretty sure the devs have heard loud and clear whm needs more damage mitigation so Im sure it will be coming but the job itself is still an amazing job.

bswpayton, it's not my intention to be critical here, but you might want to finish leveling your AST and SCH before you get too attached to an opinion. It's not really fair to compare WHM at 60 with their added suite of instant heals and buffed-up burst damage capability (i.e. what they had been lacking compared to SCH prior to 3.x) to your sub-60 healer jobs.

You might also consider that you are better at playing WHM at this point than you are at playing AST or SCH, which wouldn't be an unreasonable assumption. You don't want to base your opinion of any job on what you see other players do with it, because for all we on the forums talk about the healer role as being fairly straightforward, there are a lot of players who are not very good with healers, period.

WHM has no pet skills or placement to manage, no stacks, no card buffs, no metabuffs, nothing to really manage aside from enmity and MP, so the role is very appealing to those starting out as a healer, and IMO it's easier to learn as a raid healer since the job has basically no mechanics to keep track of. SCHs in a raid do actually need to know how to heal beyond having their fairy summoned, and sometimes you meet SCHs who are clearly accustomed to being auto-follow dungeon baggage and don't manage shields or aetherflow stack usage intelligently. Also, you run into ASTs who constantly forget to use their card buffs or do stupid things like keeping Ewer on Spread for god-knows-what-reason. If a WHM can cast Cure I/II on the MT and Medica I/II when the raid takes damage, they're kind of functional, and that's a pretty low bar.

I'll still take the bad SCH in a dungeon, but bad WHMs tend to squeak by in raids because they can usually slide under the radar as long as they are not blatantly neglecting to act.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

bswpayton, it's not .

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But Im not really basing this off of my own game play exp , I just hit 50 on my astro yesterday so yes i have two in the 50s and one thats level 60. Im going from my tanking experiences, and me playing dps and seeing more scholars doing poorly than the other two healers. Doing extreme primals and seeing almost always the scholar is the first to die before they get a revive or something. What the op mention is she doesnt want whm to be reduced to a dungeon healer well thats what the number one content in the game is but thats beside the point, but from what I have seen a scholar isnt a good solo healer when hp gets low compared to what the others can do like I mention earlier, the raid scene is niche its numbers floating around here on the forums somewhere its post asking why people dont raid. To base whether a job is good or not on something that is so niche just doesnt make any sense to me and prob never will. And I didnt take offense either about you being critical this is a forum ha so its perfectly fine to do that here.

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

But Im not really basing this off of my own game play exp , I just hit 50 on my astro yesterday so yes i have two in the 50s and one thats level 60. Im going from my tanking experiences, and me playing dps and seeing more scholars doing poorly than the other two healers. Doing extreme primals and seeing almost always the scholar is the first to die before they get a revive or something. What the op mention is she doesnt want whm to be reduced to a dungeon healer well thats what the number one content in the game is but thats beside the point, but from what I have seen a scholar isnt a good solo healer when hp gets low compared to what the others can do like I mention earlier, the raid scene is niche its numbers floating around here on the forums somewhere its post asking why people dont raid. To base whether a job is good or not on something that is so niche just doesnt make any sense to me and prob never will. And I didnt take offense either about you being critical this is a forum ha so its perfectly fine to do that here.

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Scholar does great solo healing. It always has an extra set of eyes to watch for HP drops. Scholars, like all healers, excel when they know the content. When they can strategize and plan. They have the extra benefit of mitigation, so they can literally heal the party from the past, spending a GCD before it happens, to spend less gcds after or to reach healing outputs they could not have otherwise.

Scholars are constantly asking themselves, can the fairy handle this? When can she not handle this? When should I step in? Should I OGCD heal or does it need shields? An example would be sophia EX. Shes actually really easy to solo heal as an SCH.

Succor during the tilt phase for free healing without loss of DPS. Cintami is happening. 1 of 3 choices.

1) Virus and Fey Cov it. No healing necessary outside of the free succor from tilt. Whispering dawn to fill HP back up at no cost to you.
2) Indom it. Literally all you need to survive. After this first cintami, weave an indom.
3) Fey Illu + ET + Succor or just plain succor. Doesn't matter.
4) Sacred Soil and done. Youll be cutting it close, but if everyone has decent HP and no vuln theyll be fine. Works amazingly if divine veil or dragon kick is up.

I do these things while cohealing and die a little when I see a WHM or AST spamming medica/helios. I've literally already taken care of the massive raid wide aoes and now you're overhealing and wasting your GCDs. Scholars are very stingy about their GCDs.

Next comes the tank buster. Guess what? You don't even have to heal that! You know why? You're a scholar and you're great at identifying when someones doesn't need healed! Adlo if the tanks are bad at CDs or if they have 2+ vuln stacks. They are just going to tank swap and you're going to command Eos/Selene to heal that tank up.

Had an AST the other week in a pug that couldn't heal Faust Z even with me popping Sacred soil, indom, lustrates, virus and spreading Adlo on top of fairy management. They thought it was my fault that we couldn't beat faust, because we kept wiping, even though the AST did 0 DPS. Ive since solo healed faust every week and can still manage to get an opener off + final stretch for some DPS as a Scholar. Our WHM has so much fun out DPSing our PLD. Its all about how you play your class. That AST had amazing tools like Disable and Synastry, that they never used. You just haven't noticed your good SCHs.

Basically everything that Rawrz just said.

To reiterate, I recommend forming your opinion based on your personal experience with healer jobs at the same level; if you judge based on how other players do, you will not get the real picture. There are simply too many players out there setting poor examples, and they are steering you wrong if you think that SCH or AST are at all lacking right now.

There are legitimate reasons why some WHM players are expressing concern over how the other two healing jobs are steadily encroaching on their niche. I don't think that WHM needs massive buffs or an overhaul, but I do think that WHM needs to be examined for tweaks in light of the fact that they are no longer the only healer that brings multiple regen effects to the table (their old niche vs. SCH's regen effect being tied to Eos) and that raw HPS is not necessary or desirable beyond what is needed to clear duties. WHM works just fine, but IMO the job has lost a little bit of what makes it unique aside from having the easiest kit.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

WHM works just fine, but IMO the job has lost a little bit of what makes it unique aside from having the easiest kit.

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Exactly this. The only thing WHM actually has going for it right now in raids is being easy to handle. Which is in no way an identity to distinguish itself from the other healers, let alone stand up against them.

Basically, WHM can't just stick to only heals. It needs something else that's unique to them to even stand a chance against the other two. Either that or SE bumps WHM healing up to a borderline broken level to the point where not even a 10% 40 second damage up buff would sound appealing. And that would be just stupid.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

No, WHM is also missing utility. Look at everything unique the healers can do outside healing or dealing damage. AST has Disable and Cards. SCH has enhanced E4E and Virus, and Sacred Soil. WHM has... Nothing. This isn't even including fairy buffs or shields. Give me am example of something a WHM brings to a party that the others don't and I may change my opinion.

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Not every job in this game must have utility.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

Not every job in this game must have utility.

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True, but since utility is in demand, the trade-off needs to be excellence in another area.

WHM's potential issue is that not only do we not really need more of what the job is really good at (straight-up HPS), it doesn't come with many bells and whistles compared to its peers aside from impressive AoE burst damage, which is more of a nice bonus for dungeon trash than anything else.

Just being a good healer isn't really enough to distinguish WHM anymore. I think it will continue to be perfectly functional for all content, but it would be disappointing to see it fall into its own vanilla healer ghetto now that the other two healing jobs encroach on what used to be its unique strengths. The dynamic between SCH and WHM in 2.x was more clearly defined IMO, with WHM being desirable for the ease of burst raid healing that the SCH could not provide, but with the addition of a third healing job, SE is now going with the approach that all three should be viable for all healing needs. I think that was a good idea in general, but WHM being great at healing doesn't seem to be as strong a selling point as it used to be.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

Not every job in this game must have utility.

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When nearly every job in the game has utility and synergizes with other jobs, the ones that don't have it are going to stand out.
And they better have something damn good to make up for that lack of utility. And that's where WHM comes into play. It's slightly stronger healing potency doesn't make up for not having any utility.

The situation It doesn't get any better as gear gets better and content gets easier. Strictly heals is just not going to cut it when the Cure III you didn't even need at first becomes even more useless.

I didn't say that slightly stronger healing potency is making up for their lack of utility.

Try going double WHM and let them decide who will be MH and see how much DPs the other one can put. You'll be amazed.
But like I said, sadly WHM cannot do both at the same time due to their tight MP. If they had better way to recover MP you'll see them spamming holy and helping with killing ads rather than focusing all the time on healing because if they do anything else they will cry for MP.

SCH and AST have no problem healing + dpsing and they have utility on top of that.
While WHM can heal but they will have trouble dpsing due to high MP cost. The least they could do is give them better way to recover MP and let them DPs since they have no utility.

Am i the only one who things a higher mp regen for whms isnt a good idea? I always liked that whms have to "work together" with bards/mch to keep their mp up with ballad when it is required. Giving whm a higher mp regen to compete with scholar/ast mp regen isnt really great as it lowers the value of having a bard/mch and it would take away one of whms core mechanics (Maintain mp). If any, then ast, maybe even scholars mana regen should get nerfed to a lower level.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

The least they could do is give them better way to recover MP and let them DPs since they have no utility.

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And then that brings you to the point I made. If they granted WHM a better way to regen MP they would still lack the utility of the other two healers. So instead of a WHM being 2/4, they become 3/4. Both other healers are 4/4.

Granted that may be a crude way of looking at it, but it kind of puts it into prospective.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

Exactly this. The only thing WHM actually has going for it right now in raids is being easy to handle. Which is in no way an identity to distinguish itself from the other healers, let alone stand up against them.

Basically, WHM can't just stick to only heals. It needs something else that's unique to them to even stand a chance against the other two. Either that or SE bumps WHM healing up to a borderline broken level to the point where not even a 10% 40 second damage up buff would sound appealing. And that would be just stupid.

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Frankly, I think they need to bring down the potency of Scholar and Astro. There really isn't much they could give White Mage without changing the whole job from what it's always been: a healer specialist.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Just being a good healer isn't really enough to distinguish WHM anymore. I think it will continue to be perfectly functional for all content, but it would be disappointing to see it fall into its own vanilla healer ghetto now that the other two healing jobs encroach on what used to be its unique strengths. The dynamic between SCH and WHM in 2.x was more clearly defined IMO, with WHM being desirable for the ease of burst raid healing that the SCH could not provide, but with the addition of a third healing job, SE is now going with the approach that all three should be viable for all healing needs. I think that was a good idea in general, but WHM being great at healing doesn't seem to be as strong a selling point as it used to be.

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See, this is where I wonder if that philosophy has caused more bad than good. A common complaint is how similar jobs are to one another. I think they need to redefine the unique aspects of each job, not just the role itself. At the moment, it seems the devs really want to have a few "simple" jobs. Unfortunately, they seem to stay that way even at max level. That's partly why Paladin has suffered throughout Heavensward.

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Originally Posted by Sanghelios

Am i the only one who things a higher mp regen for whms isnt a good idea? I always liked that whms have to "work together" with bards/mch to keep their mp up with ballad when it is required. Giving whm a higher mp regen to compete with scholar/ast mp regen isnt really great as it lowers the value of having a bard/mch and it would take away one of whms core mechanics (Maintain mp). If any, then ast, maybe even scholars mana regen should get nerfed to a lower level.

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I get what you're saying, but I've always been of the opinion that if you need to use Ballad outside of maybe raid progression, something has already gone wrong. Otherwise WHM can heal on fumes even if they Holy their MP down to almost nothing (by which point everything should be dead or dying).

Basically I never want to see Ballad etc. go up unless we need to recover from big mistakes. There's plenty keeping BRD and MCH relevant aside from their MP restoration, and I don't think that simply boosting WHM's MP regeneration is the answer. Mana management doesn't really work as a mechanic without special ways to expend and restore it, like how DRK has to juggle MP-restoring attacks in order to maintain Darkside and to boost specific abilities with additional MP use (Dark Arts).