What makes WHM special? Nothing anymore.

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Originally Posted by Assirra

That was in HW launch, not this patch that just happened.
I might have overlooked the threads but i couldn't see it being such a big thing with it barely mentioned and now people act like the sky fell from the heavens.

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Because the changes from 3.07 made it more apparent. This is NOT an AST problem, it's a WHM problem.

Here's something that would be nice:

The majority of cross class skills are generally buffed by traits that the initial class has (ex. Invigorate restores more for DRG, Raging Strikes has shorter CD for BRD, etc).

Now they removed our trait on Protect, which is fair, because they didn't want groups to require WHM for the better Protect.

But Cleric Stance is the same for all three healers. So how about giving us a trait that boosts the damage increase from Cleric Stance?

Just a thought.

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Originally Posted by Fevelle

Because the changes from 3.07 made it more apparent. This is NOT an AST problem, it's a WHM problem.

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AST has a stake in this because strictly speaking, it both healers' problem. AST's core feature has nothing to do with healing and most of their core healing spells are reskinned WHM spells, with only two that act slightly different in Nocturnal Sect.

My personal thoughts at AST's release were that it shouldn't have made cards such a bolted-on kind of thing but I know that ship's sailed.

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Originally Posted by Ashelia_Ferron

Here's something that would be nice:

The majority of cross class skills are generally buffed by traits that the initial class has (ex. Invigorate restores more for DRG, Raging Strikes has shorter CD for BRD, etc).

Now they removed our trait on Protect, which is fair, because they didn't want groups to require WHM for the better Protect.

But Cleric Stance is the same for all three healers. So how about giving us a trait that boosts the damage increase from Cleric Stance?

Just a thought.

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That would be tough, being able to go into Cleric Stance in a group requires you to be healing for far more than is expected to free up the GCDs to cast DPS spells, meaning you need to outgear the content or they need a flat healing buff.

One thing they could do is make dps spells in Cleric Stance heal the lowest HP friendly target within like 6y of the target that is not you for like half the damage done.

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Originally Posted by Raso

*Cure 3 has such a short range that it really isnt something that is THAT useful.
*Snip

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Just a few things I want to add.

-Astrologian has no cure 3 equivalent. Uses may be rare, but they are unmatched.

-Lightspeed, besides being useful for the mp cost reduction and extra mobility, also does work out better than PoM for any cast longer than the gcd assuming your swiftcast is down (in other words the rez, med 2/ aspHelios).

-Synastry is better when using single target heals, but Divine seal ends up better for aoe heals as well as having a shorter cooldown. And there is the HoT factor, of course.

-Assize is mostly a mana return tool, yes, but it's not unusual to benefit for the heal and dps portions of the skill, free of charge. Theoretically speaking, if there was no need for the healing portion, couldn't you switch to cleric and get a 300 pot aoe out of it since there would be no damage going on?

Overall, I think the one thing white mages can all their own is their aoe healing ability (and dungeon running aoe damage, if you care about that sort of thing). What's that worth compared to the alternative healers in the current and future content? Not really sure.

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Originally Posted by Yorumi

Could it not be argued you're guilty of exactly what you're ranting about? You have someone calmly explaining why you're wrong in your hostile responses and instead of changing you dig in deeper continue to say the same thing and give him baseless rants in return.

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Not really, as hostility is something that is perceived differently by every person, while in my comments I just compare objective stuff while giving subjective opinions providing examples for explaning how my opinion was formed. Go back a few pages and tell me if all these angry sch/whm provided any practical example (i.e. savage mechanics) to explain why AST is OP, why their skills are "useless", why they are now weaker than AST and so on. In my comments I also had to correct people that simply didn't know what the effect of a skill was, or what the potency was. People saying things like "300 potency with a 130% bonus" or "aspected benefic shield with synastry has higher potency than crit adlo". No opinions here, only very trivial calculations to prove those guys wrong. And, believe it or not, a lot of these whining people just proved in a few comments that they didn't know what the effect of the skill the were complaining about was, someone even said that "CU is a rebranded whispering dawn".
Now, if you want to tell me you don't like my attitude fine, I can take that, but twisting the argument around "hostility" or "animosity" while we're talking about very precise things doesn't work, sorry. You either give a good enough explanation to back your points or you're just whining for the sake of it.

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Originally Posted by ViDare

Please check your facts, Proshell was taken away and just given default to Protect so you didn't suffer a nerf there and Graniteskin changed the 10% stoneskin to 18%

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I did check, but it's hard to find information that specifically compares the old traits to the new etc..(though I am sure that several people will be able to leap in, provide a link and prove me wrong on that...). However, the point I was making was referencing the loss of identity, not simply the loss in potency. The fact that everyone get's Proshell in effect means the same, since prior to this change the WHM Protect was considerably more powerful than Protect used by others, and now it's not. Giving the trait as a default to all has the same impact as removing it from CNJ/WHM. The net effect of the changes is that both Protect and Stoneskin have lost the uniqueness because characters playing the class/job that originate the skills no longer have a potency advantage over those who borrow the skill.

You are correct in saying that Proshell wasn't taken away, however the net effect of the change is the same.

So it seems I might have been correct.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

I did check, but it's hard to find information that specifically compares the old traits to the new etc..

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The precise change:
ARR protect (including crossclass version) only boosted PDEF. Traited protect boosted PDEF and MDEF.
Heavensward: There is only 1 version of protect and it boosts PDEF and MDEF.

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Originally Posted by Mutemutt

Overall, I think the one thing white mages can all their own is their aoe healing ability (and dungeon running aoe damage, if you care about that sort of thing). What's that worth compared to the alternative healers in the current and future content? Not really sure.

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My math comes out to be at max 7 - 10% better in that department, seriously is that worth it over bringing the huge advantages an AST? I really don't think it is unless content is doing such extreme AoE damage overtime that its the only way to survive.

Statics should always have an AST in the group now probably with a SCH, WHM is more the emergency backup.

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Originally Posted by Raso

My math comes out to be at max 7 - 10% better in that department, seriously is that worth it over bringing the huge advantages an AST? I really don't think it is unless content is doing such extreme AoE damage overtime that its the only way to survive.

Statics should always have an AST in the group now probably with a SCH, WHM is more the emergency backup.

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Do define "huge". And also include the math of it :P

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Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine

Do define "huge". And also include the math of it :P

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We can start by saying that AST has a better version of supervirus regardless of stance(you can correct me here if i am wrong but i think 10% reduced potency is a bit better than 15% stat reduction) ,while whm has a normal virus which is not very usefull on most tank busters, or how AST got acess to 10% dmg reduction in both stances while WHM does not have any sort of mitigation (as it should be), just a couple of spontaneous things. A huge design flaw imo.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

The precise change:
ARR protect (including crossclass version) only boosted PDEF. Traited protect boosted PDEF and MDEF.
Heavensward: There is only 1 version of protect and it boosts PDEF and MDEF.

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Thank you. I appreciate the clarity. I don't play my WHM half as much as PLD, and hadn't really been able to get to grips with the detail of the changes, I guess I should read patch notes more carefully.

I know that they did this to make sure that WHM was not mandatory for magic damage heavy raid content - or so I have read. Really though, it removes a distinction that WHM/CNJ had before, as does the removal of Granite Skin. All the responses I read in these topis generally focus on pointing out that the WHM is still king or queen of power healing. But I think that the loss of identity through changes like this is not offset by potentially more powerful heals at end-game. End-game utility is about the math and optimizing gear and rotations. But if you're not involved in that, there is no offset to the loss of identity.

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Originally Posted by SenzorialBoundries

We can start by saying that AST has a better version of supervirus regardless of stance(you can correct me here if i am wrong but i think 10% reduced potency is a bit better than 15% stat reduction) ,while whm has a normal virus which is not very usefull on most tank busters, or how AST got acess to 10% dmg reduction in both stances while WHM does not have any sort of mitigation (as it should be), just a couple of spontaneous things. A huge design flaw imo.

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...Funnily enough, though, on the rare occasions where it is useful, WHM virus is every bit as good and powerful as SCH virus. Just it's not useful very often because raidbusters are virtually always magic, and a lot of tankbusters are too.

Also, WHM E4E is just as good as the traited version, it just has a huge cooldown. But I have to disagree with the bolded. Saying WHM should have no mitigation is like saying SCH should have no heals because it has shields and mitigation.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

sniü

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They had mitigation in form of the traited stone skin , i remember on t13 an adlo and a whm ss was enough to mitigate most of the flatten dmg now its more advantageous to just pre cast a cure1/2 instead of wasting mp on stone skin sadly they took it away from them, my point with the mitigation is that they shouldnt have any huge mitigation like sch succor /sacred soil or fey covenant, and scholars shouldnt have that much aoe burst healing like they recieved now in heavnsward but that is just my opinion.

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Originally Posted by SenzorialBoundries

They had mitigation in form of the traited stone skin , i remember on t13 an adlo and a whm ss was enough to mitigate most of the flatten dmg now its more advantageous to just pre cast a cure1/2 instead of wasting mp on stone skin sadly they took it away from them, my point with the mitigation is that they shouldnt have any huge mitigation like sch succor /sacred soil or fey covenant, and scholars shouldnt have that much aoe burst healing like they recieved now in heavnsward but that is just my opinion.

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I don't particularly disagree with most of what you said, but minor nitpick: Stoneskin, even at 18%, was less efficient than our worst efficiency heals. It was always more efficient to precast a heal, but you stoneskin'd Flatten because that thing really frackin' hurt and could oneshot a tank, nevermind the Flare Breaths that came right after it. xD

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Originally Posted by SenzorialBoundries

We can start by saying that AST has a better version of supervirus regardless of stance(you can correct me here if i am wrong but i think 10% reduced potency is a bit better than 15% stat reduction) ,while whm has a normal virus which is not very usefull on most tank busters, or how AST got acess to 10% dmg reduction in both stances while WHM does not have any sort of mitigation (as it should be), just a couple of spontaneous things. A huge design flaw imo.

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Well, I tried it on my monk:
914 str, 492 det - Auto attacks hits on average: 359.78 (based on 50 auto attacks without critical damage)
776 str, 417 det - Auto attack hits on average: 304.70 (based on 50 auto attacks without critical damage)
Difference: 15.31%

Regardless of the fact how small the sample size is, -15% strength does translate into roughly -15% damage. Even if we were to consider a relatively large error margin, give or take 5% off the results, it's still ranging between 14.54% and 16.08% difference. So yes, a normal virus on physical attacks is more potent than 10% reduced action damage. Also lasts longer and add in the eye for an eye comment Risvertasashi made, White Mages do have a respectable amount of mitigation.

People are looking at just tankbusters to mitigate. Yes, this is the primary source for wipes. But there are other mechanics:
A1 prey/missile mechanic is, surprisingly, physical. Although you can't guess which prey belongs to which boss, you can make it easier for yourself or the other healer.
A2 dolls and widows are primarily physical
A3 hands split up, there's no reason not to virus the extra hand that appears when needed.


Also, if I may:

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

I don't particularly disagree with most of what you said, but minor nitpick: Stoneskin, even at 18%, was less efficient than our worst efficiency heals. It was always more efficient to precast a heal, but you stoneskin'd Flatten because that thing really frackin' hurt and could oneshot a tank, nevermind the Flare Breaths that came right after it. xD

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There's no price tag on preventing a potential death.

edit:
Older content physical tank busters and "tank busters":
T1 snake cleave (it's technically the "tank buster" of this encounter)
T4 What isn't physical in here? <_>
T5 Everything that can hit you and can be survived is physical here, even the fireballs
T6 Bloody caress (cleave attack)
T7 snake lady cleave
T9 Raven's Beak, Bahamut's Claw, mr. Golem's headbutt
T10 Critical Rip
T11 Resonance (and secondary head, I believe?)
T12 Revelation - YES, that giant ball of fire is physical
T13 Flatten, deadly drive (phase 2 adds), death sentence (phase 3 add)

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Originally Posted by SenzorialBoundries

snip

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Stoneskin just is not worth it in combat at all period.

But every class should be able to fulfill the roles expected but excel in specific areas, the problem is.
1) each class should do it differently. SCH's Aetherflow makes it extremely unique, WHM and AST now have the exact same basic toolkit.
2) No one can match the cards they are too strong now give up nothing for them, all cards but the spear are really quite useful. An SCH is the only one that comes close, a WHM cant touch them at all without stopping healing. The only area that a WHM excels is AoE healing but that isnt by much at all, it cant be due to its required for healing. WHM is just lacking that one advantage to be unique really.

Also I have been asked 3 times dungeons "when am I switching to AST? This would be faster now if you were one and I could do more deeps. Your like in the second rate healer class" even though we cleared it in good time and no one even got low. yeah...

White Mage is the liquid paper of healers, our excessive healing covers up party member mistakes. Very good in learning content and when the other healer wants to be lazy or wants to DPS but not really optimal when farming content.

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Originally Posted by Raso

2) No one can match the cards they are too strong now give up nothing for them, all cards but the spear are really quite useful.

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Right, I've refrained from commenting on this particular kind of notion that's been beaten like a dead horse, resurrected and beaten to death again. But here I go:

Assume a 10 minute encounter, that's 20 draws. 16.7% chance to draw a balance, 33.3% chance to draw something to extend it, 33.3% chance to expand it, 16.7% chance to enhance it. So let's assume we ONLY use Balance here, as that is the more direct damage output increase card and seemingly your argument that Astrologian has an edge against white mage in the DPS department. (last one doesn't count, but let's forget about that for now as 20 is an easier number to calculate with :P)

So out of 20 cards drawn 3 to 4 of them will be balance. Let's just assume it's 4 in your argument's advantage and each time it's expanded too, so 400% effect (NOT entirely true, but in your argument's advantage again).
so 4 cards lasting 30 seconds for +5% damage on 8 players total leads to:
120 seconds +5% damage in an encounter that lasts 10 minutes. This averages down to an increase of 1% combined raid DPS when everything is perfectly drawn

I suppose you define 1% as "huge"?

Oh yeah, it's a "perfect world", so let's start the encounter with an expanded balance, expanded royal road after using it and draw another balance straight away: 5 expanded balances in 10 minutes! The dps increase suddenly went up to +1,25%!

But Balance doesn't define astrologian. Other cards have uses in the right hand and in the right encounter. Spear's useless? Here's an example for it's use: With how MP pressing A2S can be, giving your Scholar a well-timed spear can help them in the MP department. If not on your scholar, your summoner. If neither, yourself if you have GCDs coming back soon. Still no good choice? Royal road it.

Edit:
I just realised, but I asked you to define what the "huge" increase was. But I just did it for you. So you're welcome.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

However, the point I was making was referencing the loss of identity, not simply the loss in potency.

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But as I and many others have already stated countless times, whm still has it's identity. It's still the pure healer of the game, with the strongest raid healing output and best healing toolkit. Nothing changed that. I don't know how many times this needs to be stated.

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Originally Posted by Yorumi

The problem is that people have spent more time attacking the person than anything else. Probably half the pages in this thread are nothing more than "oh yeah well you don't have whm leveled." That doesn't contribute anything to the discussion. Even when someone is completely uninformed you can still have a proper discussion and explain why their wrong. For some reason all the job boards just love to tell people their uninformed and walk away.

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Actually, many people have explained a lot. Including myself. However, the reason I (and possibly the others) started to go into "attack mode" is because these complaints started as uneducated opinions based on feelings. There was very little fact to being with, and most of the facts they did use have been distorted as to cause fear mongering. So it's kinda hard to counter them beyond listing whm's toolkit and and explaining why it's better. Which was done multiple times in this thread alone.

This isn't isolated to this thread either. So I imagine that many others like myself are just tired of repeating the same thing over and over to people being willfully ignorant.

Sick of watch all these meaningless drama. Haha

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Originally Posted by Eudyptes

This isn't isolated to this thread either. So I imagine that many others like myself are just tired of repeating the same thing over and over to people being willfully ignorant.

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The problem is it actually perpetuates the problem doing this. I read this thread and I see the vast majority of people just attacking each other, many that attempt the give facts usually quickly turn to attacks and when they don't it's often then pointing to a minor difference in two or three skills and I ask "if it's so objectively better why all the insults?" The moment people cross that line they lose credibility. If a person looks at someone making a wrong, but valid argument in a level headed way, and someone saying something truthful in an insulting way, the second person is far less likely to be believed. There's just never a good reason to ever go into the kind of attacks you see regularly on these boards. It's not going to make people stop, it doesn't lend credibility to anyone it just makes everything worse. If you believe someone truly isn't listening then the solution isn't to attack them.

How does anyone get useful information when most of the thread looks like a bunch of kids on the playground going "nuh uh, yeah huh, huh uh"?

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Originally Posted by Rewind

Why does WHM have to compete with anything? Why do healers have to compete with each other? It's not a war or anything, they're mean to be working together :P If all you care about is HPS metres, Healing is probably not a class for you.

WHM still has far better burst DPS (PoM is attack speed only btw), better AoE DPS (Holy>Gravity), more increased HPS utility, very strong instant aoe heal, better MP regen.

Divine Seal is one of the strongest healing buff spells in game because it also increases the potency of hot ticks as well as the initial heal. Light speed does not work the way in you describe as it only reduces cast time not GCD making it quite clunky to use, though not entirely useless.

AST is now somewhat comparative HPS wise but a WHM is always going to be the strongest raid healer out of the three.

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This.

I main a WHM. I also play SCH and AST on the side. If these buffs were too much, then -what- changes could fix it to make AST stand with WHM and SCH? I want to heal. I want to keep my party members alive. If I can't for any reason, either I'm playing the class wrong or something is wrong with the class. I was dying horribly in speedruns and raids took one look at the AST icon and went "NOPE" because they couldn't handle the pain. Now they can, and its a problem? Its not about being unique, its about keeping the party alive. Thats our job.

I look forward to heal bro fisting future ASTs since we're suppose to be partners to keep everyone else alive, not competing who is the more special snowflake that can heal more. Thats not the point of the classes here.

The main issue about white mage is that burst healing starts becoming irrelevant as more people learn the fight and get overgeared for it, we could say burst healing is negatively proportional to overgear. Now it's not noticeable because back on ARR 2.0-2.1 required a lot of burst healing, but some months after SCOB got released together with soldiery tomestones people were so overgeared that burst healing became irrelevant and so the "sch can solo heal everything" began and that kept going to fcob because yoshida didn't stop and think "damn, i130 might be a bit too much for this kind of instance".

ARR aside, overgear will come back to haunt us someday and burst healing will become irrelevant once again so it all comes down to which 2 of the 3 healers can dps the most while doing their job properly. We have scholar with a now higher burst healing capacity while being a wannabe summoner, which pretty much grants them a raid spot and then we have WHM vs AST.

WHM has the highest dps output of all 3 healers (yes even you scholars, do the math) however every single of their dps skills require accuracy which make WHM miss a lot of endgame raids, together with their non infinite MP that becomes quite inefficient. And then we have astrologians who don't have to deal with accuracy on any way unless they want to spam malefic II and place aero making up the rest of their dps by buffing others.

How do we fix this?
I have to persist in the replacement of the completely useless enhanced medica I trait for a conjurer only trait that increases accuracy while on cleric stance, while this won't make white mage have more utility than what it has right now, it grants that the utility it has right now is reliable now and in the future.

TL;DR : BURST HEALING BECOMES USELESS WITH OVERGEAR, GIVE WHITE MAGES LESS ACCURACY ISSUES YOSHIDA!!

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Originally Posted by Yorumi

The problem is it actually perpetuates the problem doing this.

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The facts were laid out and never countered. People just came in and repeated the same stuff OP said w/o adding anything new or challenging the counterarguments...or w/o reading what was already stated by the sound of it. There's only so much of that any reasonable non-PR professional can take without just thinking "this is really dumb".

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Originally Posted by Cedane

snip

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It's not about the "buffing" many already stated this, its how the buffs were done - copy pasta sch/whm skills thats is the path of least resistance and its not ok.

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Originally Posted by Cedane

I main a WHM. I also play SCH and AST on the side. If these buffs were too much, then -what- changes could fix it to make AST stand with WHM and SCH?

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The problem has to do with design philosophy. Healers should all be viable of course, but the way it should be looked at is all healers should be able to accomplish the same tasks, just in different ways. To a degree sch vs whm shows this, raw healing power vs shields, they accomplish the same task, and have roughly the same healing throughput, but do so in different ways, that's what makes them interesting.

An AST should be looked at similarly. How about for example reactive heals. "Heals the target with a potency of 300, and places a reactive heal buff on target. When the target's hp drops below 60% the buff is removed and the target is healed for again with a potency of 300." Another way you could accomplish making them different is healing through hots and regens rather than direct heals. So maybe an AST has weak direct heals but can stack like 5 different regens at once. You could also make the cards account for the difference. So if AST has 20% less HPS than a whm, allow their cards to create the equivalent of 20% damage reduction over the whole fight.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Yorumi

The problem has to do with design philosophy. Healers should all be viable of course, but the way it should be looked at is all healers should be able to accomplish the same tasks, just in different ways. To a degree sch vs whm shows this, raw healing power vs shields, they accomplish the same task, and have roughly the same healing throughput, but do so in different ways, that's what makes them interesting.

An AST should be looked at similarly. How about for example reactive heals. "Heals the target with a potency of 300, and places a reactive heal buff on target. When the target's hp drops below 60% the buff is removed and the target is healed for again with a potency of 300." Another way you could accomplish making them different is healing through hots and regens rather than direct heals. So maybe an AST has weak direct heals but can stack like 5 different regens at once. You could also make the cards account for the difference. So if AST has 20% less HPS than a whm, allow their cards to create the equivalent of 20% damage reduction over the whole fight.

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But could that work in practice? It sounds good on paper but would that work in the long run? We're not programmers. We're players.

Either way, I think I'd prefer the changes the way they are now. I don't want to be unique. I want to heal at my best, really. Even with alternatives, they... don't sound good to what we have now. No offense or anything.

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Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine

snip

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Sustained DPS of cards is low sure but most fights it boils down to burst DPS, a single stocked up AoE Balance card used at the key moment can make or break a boss attempt like say both HW trials.

WHM can't do crap about it, it's DPS is roughly equal to a AST doing normal uncarded DPS on single target, an SCH does have some burst with the pet CD and such.

And the math you had asked was just simple comparisons of the -100 total potency of AST's AoE heal vs vs DS Medica 2 used on CD with Assize used on cd. A rough estimate was around 7%, but I didn't factor in Synasty's 20% buff nor CU's HoT.

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Originally Posted by SenzorialBoundries

It's not about the "buffing" many already stated this, its how the buffs were done - copy pasta sch/whm skills thats is the path of least resistance and its not ok.

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But why?

It was advertised from the beginning that it was going to share both with a bit of buffing in the cards since they advertised it. If it isn't fair now, why didn't you guys think it was fair -then-?

In the end, I think you guys are being overly dramatic about this. If I want to be a pure healer with the most options to heal? I will be a White Mage which is what I enjoy playing the most. If I get bored and want to use barriers and have a pet to heal? I've got Scholar. If I want to just play with cards, do a little bit of both and change how I play based on which other healer is in the party with me? I'll be an Astrologian. How they play is a bit different in that regard, but can they heal and keep everyone alive in savage Alexander?

If the answer is yes, then the buff was necessary. and I welcome the change. It was really needed, and it doesn't -really- effect anyone.

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Originally Posted by Eudyptes

But as I and many others have already stated countless times, whm still has it's identity. It's still the pure healer of the game, with the strongest raid healing output and best healing toolkit. Nothing changed that. I don't know how many times this needs to be stated.

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I don't know how many times. But since you've completely avoided the fact that I wasn't talking about end-game, I guess it will be at least once more.

How a job plays out in end-game, what it's numbers are, may be of great interest to you and raiders/end-gamers in general, but it's not to me. What is interesting to me is how the role looks and feels during mainstream story content, NOT end-game content.

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Originally Posted by Cedane

But why?

It was advertised from the beginning that it was going to share both with a bit of buffing in the cards since they advertised it. If it isn't fair now, why didn't you guys think it was fair -then-?

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that is the problem ast needs a rework the most otherwise you can never balance a hybrid class without making it outshine the original classes it was based off, only solution without a rework is to make the cards very wanted and hot.

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Originally Posted by Cedane

But could that work in practice? It sounds good on paper but would that work in the long run? We're not programmers. We're players.

Either way, I think I'd prefer the changes the way they are now. I don't want to be unique. I want to heal at my best, really. Even with alternatives, they... don't sound good to what we have now. No offense or anything.

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Other games have generally managed to have multiple healers who heal differently but overall accomplish the goal of healing a party. You still heal at your best you just accomplish the overall healing in different ways. That's what makes classes interesting and not just reskins. Reskinning is the easy way to balance, but it makes the game dull. It's fun when you can switch classes and have a totally different experience rather than doing the same thing with a different coat of paint.

So the other dead horse got brought up again: Design philosophy

Ok, so let's assume the following Scenario:
White mage is king/queen of HPS
Scholar brings mitigation and DPS on the table
And Astrologian can't do either up to par

That would mean the cards must have significant effect for it to compensate for the "lack of healing potency" (as being complained about over and over and over and over and over again the past month or so). Now what would happen if their cards would actually increase average raid DPS by, let's say, 5% (5% total raid DPS including a 5% bonus on their own)?

White Mage would be in an even worse position. Simply to how mechanic and DPS driven the raid encounters are. If the party isn't bleeding to death or being blown up, it would be DPS checks that's causing the wipes. Considering that we're technically still undergeared for the encounter and White Mage can't mitigate as well as Scholar and can't bring enough DPS on the table to bridge the 5% bonus an Astrologian would bring.

If it's not DPS contribution, but mitigation (as mentioned earlier), Scholars would be out of a job. This would simply shift the problem to another source.

While I do agree that the potency boost changes is the easiest way to get out of things and frankly, I don't like it. But it's also the least "destructive" or "balance breaking", rather than flat out buffing the cards in a manner that no party can afford to miss out on.

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Originally Posted by SenzorialBoundries

that is the problem ast needs a rework the most otherwise you can never balance a hybrid class without making it outshine the original classes it was based off, only solution without a rework is to make the cards very wanted and hot.

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Do you play an Astrologian? I've been playing it with the changes. I'm not struggling in speed runs anymore and not struggling in huge boss fights anymore. They needed this buff.

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Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine

White Mage would be in an even worse position. Simply to how mechanic and DPS driven the raid encounters are. If the party isn't bleeding to death or being blown up, it would be DPS checks that's causing the wipes. Considering that we're technically still undergeared for the encounter and White Mage can't mitigate as well as Scholar and can't bring enough DPS on the table to bridge the 5% bonus an Astrologian would bring.

If it's not DPS contribution, but mitigation (as mentioned earlier), Scholars would be out of a job. This would simply shift the problem to another source.

While I do agree that the potency boost changes is the easiest way to get out of things and frankly, I don't like it. But it's also the least "destructive" or "balance breaking", rather than flat out buffing the cards in a manner that no party can afford to miss out on.

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Exactly. This is why I'm pretty cool with the changes. If they did it with the cards, WHM would get the boot overrall in that scenario. SCH/AST would be the mandatory. It would have been a horrific shift for everyone.

But setting it to strengthening the barriers, heal potency is equal to all and least some minor adjustments to the cards, this was the best scenario for everyone involved. But people seem to overlook or even ignore this.

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Originally Posted by Raso

WHM can't do crap about it, it's DPS is roughly equal to a AST doing normal uncarded DPS on single target

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http://i.imgur.com/RyLtQvI.gif

http://i.imgur.com/4ZJjd11.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/V7AJHvw.png

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Originally Posted by Coltvoyance

Here's the question I pose to people who think there's no identity crisis.... and I want you to take a moment to imagine this scenario before making a gut reply to it.

Scenario 1:
Patch 3.1 hits and they decide they're going to give both WHM and AST a Selene Fairy and tack on some of the basic pet skills to the class Cooldowns. SCH's get a small potency buff and everyone remains at the same "Balanced" healing level as before; except now all healers have a fairy.
Do you still feel special playing as a Scholar? You're still slightly "better" with your fairy, but now everyone has one.

See where WHM is coming from on this?

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You don't even need to go that far. Take a look at my thread asking for Supervirus to be rolled into Virus to see the SCH defense brigade out in force.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

I don't know how many times. But since you've completely avoided the fact that I wasn't talking about end-game, I guess it will be at least once more.

How a job plays out in end-game, what it's numbers are, may be of great interest to you and raiders/end-gamers in general, but it's not to me. What is interesting to me is how the role looks and feels during mainstream story content, NOT end-game content.

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Eh? Umm base healing and DPS between WHM and AST is exactly the same with most stuff gotten on the same levels with the exception of AST's ED is learned at level 4 and WHM's tetra is learned at 60 and Gravity is learned at 52 instead of 50 thus can't be used in 50 hard dungeons.

And I mean exactly the same, you get good at a WHM to 60 you can use all the same keybinds for AST's equivalent spells perfectly.

Here's the question I pose to people who think there's no identity crisis.... and I want you to take a moment to imagine this scenario before making a gut reply to it.

Scenario 1:
Patch 3.1 hits and they decide they're going to give both WHM and AST a Selene Fairy and tack on some of the basic pet skills to the class Cooldowns. SCH's get a small potency buff and everyone remains at the same "Balanced" healing level as before; except now all healers have a fairy.
Do you still feel special playing as a Scholar? You're still slightly "better" with your fairy, but now everyone has one.

Scenario 2:
SE decides they made a huge mistake with implementing Cards into the game. The RNG is horrid and they cant get it right so they completely remove Cards from AST and put 2 extra instant heals in their place. SE says AST is now purely about its Sects and no longer about cards.
Does AST still seem appealing to you even though you cant play Triple Triad while you fight? You got some new heals! But no cards. Is it still fun?

See where WHM is coming from on this?