How Bad Is Healer Damage Now?

So I played WHM just a tiny bit at the end of Stormblood, and not even at max level. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and was wanting to go AST in Shadowbringers, but I heard that their damage is kind of crud, and while I do want to do group content obviously, I also plan on doing world content and soloing a bit. So what should I be anticipating in terms of that?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheArchivis95

So I played WHM just a tiny bit at the end of Stormblood, and not even at max level. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and was wanting to go AST in Shadowbringers, but I heard that their damage is kind of crud, and while I do want to do group content obviously, I also plan on doing world content and soloing a bit. So what should I be anticipating in terms of that?

---

Soloing is fine. Bring your chocobo.

Damage hasn't really been reduced, it's more that we have less damage options than we did in earlier expansions (One single target, one AoE, on DoT.) So, damage is perfectly possible, it's just... boring.

WHM topping the charts during large AoE pulls thanks to Holy, Afflatus and Assize. Single target will see you compete with the tank and any sleeper-DPS depending on how much freedom you have - again, mostly with one button - but expect to be last or 3rd at all times in any normal situation.

I levelled WHM first as that has been my main since ARR and it was an absolute breeze in both solo and group content, albeit not the most thrilling experience due to lack of damage options. No Chocobo seeing as I have mine set as a Healer. Provided you are not off-put but the simple fact that you will mostly be using 2 buttons (GCD's and Afflatus aside), then it is currently the go-to if you put any value in pumping out damage as a Healer.

Bear in mind that this may do a 180 flip seeing as patches are soon on the horizon and we've no idea how (or if) they may rebalance the Healers.

Can't speak for AST or SCH as I have touched neither in SHB.

Based on Titania Ex I'm seeing these numbers. The 6 are the highest and lowest from DPS/TANK/HEAL so you get an idea of range:

50th percentile
-Black Mage 9,749.63
-Dancer 7,813.97
-Gunbreaker 6,050.13
-Dark Knight 5,799.02
-White Mage 4,428.75
-Astrologian 2,863.82

75th
-Black Mage 10,762.09
-Dancer 8,330.20
-Gunbreaker 6,443.61
-Dark Knight 6,191.38
-White Mage 5,300.91
-Astrologian 3,662.17

95th
-Black Mage 12,129.30
-Dancer 8,971.12
-Gunbreaker 6,913.55
-Dark Knight 6,655.99
-White Mage 6,371.30
-Astrologian 4,657.35

WHM right now is in a fantastic place and their personal DPS likely far outweighs any buffs brought by the others. AST, on the other hand, may be slightly lacking at this early stage. But it will take someone more patient than I to properly work out the DPS contribution from their buffs at different levels of play. But as their cards got hit pretty hard I'm going to assume it's not looking good.

That said, we're due the first rough balance patch either this maintenance, or the one for Savage, so expect a few numbers to jump around very soon.

My guildmate's not even capped and is pulling an easy 2.6k on Titania as WHM -- he's slightly more aggressive than me lol. He was 2.6k dps vs 7.7k hps, I was 1.6k dps vs 10k hps last time we went through.

Healer damage isn't necessarily bad, it's just..boring. The healing portion of the job, as expected, is generally more fun. Especially when something actually goes wrong somewhere.

Output is the same as when you had more skills. They just removed skills and adjusted your remaining ones. WHM dps is insane rn btw.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuurei

My guildmate's not even capped and is pulling an easy 2.6k on Titania as WHM -- he's slightly more aggressive than me lol. He was 2.6k dps vs 7.7k hps, I was 1.6k dps vs 10k hps last time we went through.

Healer damage isn't necessarily bad, it's just..boring. The healing portion of the job, as expected, is generally more fun. Especially when something actually goes wrong somewhere.

---

So at 2.6K dps, damage output is actually less than SB?

solo is fine and yes bring your chicken.

as for party, personally from my experience, 80% of the time if tank aggro 2-3 mobs at once, you probably busy healing the tank instead of doing damage nowadays. when there is 1-2 enemy left then you have some window to help dps.

If you'd like a green DPS have you considered RDM?

Everybody should always bring their chicken for solo.

I mean, it's free damage, even when I'm playing RDM, I notice I kill things faster with the Chicken than I do without the Chicken. So saying "Bring your chicken" is kind of redundant, because.. you should *always* bring your chicken regardless.

That, and dude, the XP at Lv70+ .... if your chocobo is Lv1 .... it'll be 10+ in just a few days of questing in ShB.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheArchivis95

So I played WHM just a tiny bit at the end of Stormblood, and not even at max level. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and was wanting to go AST in Shadowbringers, but I heard that their damage is kind of crud, and while I do want to do group content obviously, I also plan on doing world content and soloing a bit. So what should I be anticipating in terms of that?

---

AST damage is crud more because its mitigative utility and reliable healing output is crud, allowing less space for dpsing -- at least compared to WHM, which is a beast. I mean, if you want to feel like a dungeon god, by all means, just go WHM.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheArchivis95

So I played WHM just a tiny bit at the end of Stormblood, and not even at max level. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and was wanting to go AST in Shadowbringers, but I heard that their damage is kind of crud, and while I do want to do group content obviously, I also plan on doing world content and soloing a bit. So what should I be anticipating in terms of that?

---

WHM has the best DPS, followed by SCH, then AST. AST has it really bad atm but WHM does really good. My WHM partner was pulling 4.5k DPS in Innocence and still did like 1k more HPS than my SCH did. /sigh Meanwhile, the ASTs I've partnered with do a lot less in both. All three can DPS but WHM has the big dish DPS atm. They'll eventually get nerfed and AST will get buffs tho. That's how these things go.

Just finished Shadowbringers MSQ with WHM and it was fine. I sometimes tried AST along the line to see how it goes and WHM felt much better. I saved few lives with heals when joining FATEs and also dealt noticable damage

SCH was best healer for solo before Shadowbringers but the class kinda forgot its spells so it is not anymore

In terms of raw potency, it isn't much different than it's ever been. What's changed is the amount of skills that deliver those potencies, especially in the case of SCH. If talking about healer DPS in the context of how engaging it is, then healer DPS was never all that great even before ShB.

Those who loved pre-ShB SCH will undoubtedly feel the change to their DPS rotation, but those who preferred to play WHM and/or AST really don't have anything to complain about when it comes to just DPS skills. They didn't lose anything. WHM did lose Aero 3 but gained Misery. I should backup a little bit because WHM is apparently dominating the healer DPS charts, but I personally don't know a whole lot about this. Either way, if you're used to killing stuff as a WHM or AST, then you have very little to worry about.

However, if you loved DPSing as a SCH then you're going to be in a tough spot. Not because their DPS has been heavily nerfed but rather the pruning has stripped SCH down to a shell of what it used to be. Like others have said; it's extremely boring now. It's actually worse than WHM and AST. At least they still have Assize and Earthly Star. SCH doesn't have their own version of this AoE ability, or anything to compensate for the absence.

The damage values didn't change a lot. It only moved to one or two buttons now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alisi

WHM has the best DPS, followed by SCH, then AST. AST has it really bad atm but WHM does really good. My WHM partner was pulling 4.5k DPS in Innocence and still did like 1k more HPS than my SCH did. /sigh Meanwhile, the ASTs I've partnered with do a lot less in both. All three can DPS but WHM has the big dish DPS atm. They'll eventually get nerfed and AST will get buffs tho. That's how these things go.

---

Don't look only at HPS. Look at their overheal. Every WHM I've partnered with in Trials so far has had an overheal of 50+%. Its not hard to get ridiculous HPS when they're spamming Medica II just to keep the HoT on everyone.

The biggest problem with looking at Healer dps figures in online logs is that everyone who uploads the logs designates one healer to spam DPS and leave the majority of the heavy lifting to the other one.
I can beat the Titania EX SSS Dummy with spare time as a SCH, it's dps is clearly fine.

In the figures listed above, The WHM and AST are around 1600~ dps apart in both the highest and lowest percentiles. If the ASTs cards and Divinations provide 1600~ raid dps (200 per player) then their contributions are equal. Given that Chain is a dps boost of 200 for my own SCH while active, then it would seem that the healers are in fact, balanced in terms of contribution.

Since the only change SE deemed necessary in the leadup to Eden was to reduce our AoE MP costs to match WHM, they obviously don't see any major issues with us yet.
SE balances healers on equal contributions from both in a raid, not the player mentality of dumping the work on a co-healer so they can go full green dps.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deceptus

So at 2.6K dps, damage output is actually less than SB?

---

Just to add onto this, above average healer dps on stormblood was 2.6k I think 70-80% was 3k+(?) and then it was like 3.5k on the top end. Where average healer dps in shadowbringers is 3.5k and average whm dps is 4k-4.6k with anything over 5k being above average. As far as I can tell right now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sylve

Don't look only at HPS. Look at their overheal. Every WHM I've partnered with in Trials so far has had an overheal of 50+%. Its not hard to get ridiculous HPS when they're spamming Medica II just to keep the HoT on everyone.

---

On a related note, I've been running stuff on SCH and it drives me up the wall how much people ignore Excog. It's like, yeah, of course I'm getting less HPS, I'm letting autos take them down to 50% where Excog can fire instead of tossing stuff the moment they hit 80%. Then the duration wears off with the tank at 90% and I scream inside.

If you played WHM before, tC, why switch to AST? WHM is objectively better than in ShB (based purely on DPS since nothing else changed much), so no need to switch.

@kuurei
I hope you confused HPS and DPS since those DPS numbers there... but that cannot be since then you would literally top DPS charts. This numbers are... very sad. So much overheal...

@Sylve
According to a friend, both my SCH partner and I were in the 81%u0025 last night on Titania in a horrid group, so no, not everyone does that... also, my overheal is at 32% and mostly from burning Lilies between phases and Assize.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Urthdigger

On a related note, I've been running stuff on SCH and it drives me up the wall how much people ignore Excog. It's like, yeah, of course I'm getting less HPS, I'm letting autos take them down to 50% where Excog can fire instead of tossing stuff the moment they hit 80%. Then the duration wears off with the tank at 90% and I scream inside.

---

Nothing enrages me more than seeing a PLD spam Clemency with Excog at 5~ seconds remaining.
I'm a bit odd about my Excogs, as I like to use Adloq while its active to extend the 'safe' time before it pops. But the tank thinks I need help healing him and wastes the point of Excog.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sylve

The biggest problem with looking at Healer dps figures in online logs is that everyone who uploads the logs designates one healer to spam DPS and leave the majority of the heavy lifting to the other one.
I can beat the Titania EX SSS Dummy with spare time as a SCH, it's dps is clearly fine.

---

That's why you look at a range of values. It's usually only the top percentages which are padded, but is useful to see the peak of what the class is capable of. Meanwhile the 50th percentile is just average Joe who has just cleared doing their usual whatever and likely didn't have any real advanced coordination. Likewise if you head down to 25th you'll reach the fights where it was likely pretty rough on the healers, maybe it was a first clear and they only just pulled the party over the line. It's why I usually give a spread from the absolute average at 50 up to 'good' at 75 to peak at 95+.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sylve

In the figures listed above, The WHM and AST are around 1600~ dps apart in both the highest and lowest percentiles. If the ASTs cards and Divinations provide 1600~ raid dps (200 per player) then their contributions are equal. Given that Chain is a dps boost of 200 for my own SCH while active, then it would seem that the healers are in fact, balanced in terms of contribution.

---

If we look at the 50th Black mage (and Samurai isn't too far behind) in those examples we'll say each can pull 9700. Thanks to Squenix making all cards the same now it's actually easier to work out how much DPS they contribute. Let's assume this average BLM/SAM wasn't fed cards already and give him an AST. Draw provides 6% buffs on a 50% uptime. So just from Draw that's a 291 DPS gain for AST. If we assume that they're somehow Minoring every card for an 8% buff and still getting seals that's 338.

Divination is more awkward because there are fewer full party comps and the like. But it's a 6% boost with 8% uptime. Looking at a party made up of all the top scoring classes (which isn't really ideal, but bear with me) at 50th that gives a combined DPS of about 57832. 6% of that is 3469, and 8% of that is 277. So unless I'm missing something, all in an AST's cards give 665 additional DPS.

Of course burst windows affect this and it's a lot more complicated than the general overview I gave, but that's still 1000 DPS to try and pick up.

You could argue for their flexibility to be worth a certain amount of DPS in general utility and the like, but on raw damage that's where they stand, more or less.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sylve

Since the only change SE deemed necessary in the leadup to Eden was to reduce our AoE MP costs to match WHM, they obviously don't see any major issues with us yet.

---

This is still extremely early days and, while I expected something a bit more than MP values being changed, we don't have Savage numbers to look over. But as it stands I think ASTs could do with closing the gap a little bit.

They'd have to be careful not to overdo it, though, or else it'll go the other way again and we'd just have us being both outDPSed and out utilitied, being put in the corner for the 3rd consecutive expansion. But as ShB was explicitly stated to be about perfecting healer balance then they need to give AST a little bit of attention.

This isn't even touching on how it feels to play and the gripes some people have with the card system as that's a whole different can of worms.

I’m close to 10k average across the entire run in dungeons with PF randoms and should hit or exceed that mark with a static group I can coordinate. Titania sees me around 5-6.3k depending on mistakes and my co healer. If I leaned on them more then 6.5k would be very realistic without scumbagging too much.