So 4+ years on since the pairing first Dominated the raiding scene.

AST/SCH is still the undisputed meta pairing.

Now I don't think this is actually because the jobs themselves are overpowered

On the contrary, I think it's because from a design philosophy standpoint, they are exactly what every raid needs them to be which is why no other combination can reach the same ceiling and hasn't been able to since Stormblood.

I think it's high time that the devs stopped kidding themselves that loading WHM/SGE with more healing or personal damage is ever going to make a dent in the flexibility and utility that AST/SCH has long brought to the table.

The only way they ever get other options and pairings is simple.

They need to even the playing field.

Look at what makes AST/SCH such a "go to" pairing, why does the raiding scene prefer them always? What utility can we potentially add to the other two to put them in contention?

Be aware, I'm not asking for nerfs, nerfing is not the way forward, I'm simply asking them to consider utility options for WHM/SGE that puts them as contending options instead of how it currently is now.

Because right now? After 4 years of much the same pairing reigning supreme, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm frankly more than a little tired of it and dying to see meaningful change instead of haphazardly attempting to break the pairing up with nerfs that will never work because the one thing they bring that the other two healers can never match.

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Originally Posted by JanVanding

AST/SCH is still the undisputed meta pairing.

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Except it's not.

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Now to first answer your question, the easy answer is powerful heals + raid buffs. Even if it's not "the best" damage (though often it has been), people like that it pumps up their rank on FF logs, and then add in reliable healing on top of that, and you have a combination that was often winning.

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Now let's go back to the first point. AST+SCH is not the undisputed meta. SCH+SGE has the best damage. Now a lot of people don't want to run dual shield healers - it takes exceptional players to make it worth without the raw healing of the others available, and a lot of coordination to avoid healers annoying eachother by overwriting shields. But if you want the best damage, it's the combo.

If you overgear fights to the point where shields aren't strictly necessary, AST+WHM is also pretty high output right now.

SCH+WHM is a bit behind AST+WHM, but only very very slightly. To the point where for 99.9% of groups it's going to be meaningless. For the 0.1% (if that) that might be trying to get that last few seconds of the world's fastest speedskill, SGE+SCH would be better.

AST+SCH isn't doing too bad but it's not the undisputed master, and the others are as close as they've ever been. If anything, at least in terms of damage contribution, things are about the most balanced they've ever been. Of course, there will always be those that go "Well SCH and AST pad my parse so I want them no matter what." But the only way you're going to get rid of that is further homogenization: make all healers selfish DPS, or make all healers raid buffers.

There's not such a disparity that you can consider "meta" jobs in the sense that most people will read it, ie some jobs being much stronger than others.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Now let's go back to the first point. AST+SCH is not the undisputed meta. SCH+SGE has the best damage. Now a lot of people don't want to run dual shield healers - it takes exceptional players to make it worth without the raw healing of the others available, and a lot of coordination to avoid healers annoying eachother by overwriting shields. But if you want the best damage, it's the combo.

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I would go further and claim that you don't even need exceptional players for this. We had less issues in P4S with SGE+SCH than we did with SGE+WHM or SGE+AST and every time the latter was a random pug.

The whole regen/barrier healer split is complete nonsense since all of them still have regens in their toolkit and more than enough healing output. Even the shields aren't an issue since neither of them is usually casting GCD shields, the only ones that do not stack.

The only negative I can think of is that SGE+SCH is weak when it comes to recovering from badly timed deaths.

Aside from Max Percentile where AST is in second place, AST is at the bottom for rDPS at 99th and below. They also have significantly fewer parses than the other 3 healers, as it appears that despite ASTs strength in a raid setting, the absolute horrendous state the job is currently in keeps most players off of it. AST is slated for "major adjustments" in 6.2, which will hopefully address button bloat and maybe even address issues with the card system.

SGE sacrifices utility and offensive buffs in exchange for high personal DPS that does outperform SCH & AST even with their raid buffs. It's also no slouch on mitigation and offers the highest total sustained healing even if its burst healing potential is low. The fact that its GCD barriers don't stack with SCH's is largely irrelevant as a good SGE rarely casts barriers to begin with, and since SCH's barriers are generally better thanks to Deployment Tactics, SGE very comfortably takes a back seat to rare instances of barrier healing when paired with a SCH.

SCH offers decent damage and a very powerful raid buff in Chain Stratagem as well as greater party utility over SGE. Expedient and Deployment Critlo offer a much wider safety net than what SGE can provide making it especially safer for less confident healers and parties. Something to note that applies to AST as well is that raid buffs shine very strongly at the beginning of a raid tier because the healer doesn't need to roll for gear in order to improve in contributions since geared DPS will add to your contributions for you during buff windows. SGE needs to be selfish to keep up with SCH and AST early on which isn't ideal.

AST lacks overall offensive contributions, but once again buffs do matter especially at the beginning of a raid tier (and the DPS love the constant flat boosts overall). It just has extremely powerful healing resources and burst healing potential, which is especially helpful and safe for tight healing windows such as final Coherence during P2S (and of course Death's Toll). Savage can have some demanding heal moments which AST can do far easier than any of the other healers, and it's not just Macrocosmos we're talking about. Neutral Sect, Earthly Star, and Collective Unconscious are all extremely useful and are straight up better than most of what anyone else offers in terms of healing. It's not necessary by any means, but AST makes healing checks far easier.

Any combination of these 3 has value. SGE offers high performance, AST offers high safety and great early prog benefits, and SCH fits comfortably in the middle offering good performance, good prog benefits, and good safety. I'd say that's pretty nicely balanced for the most part. If they can preserve that balance and finally fix healer gameplay, we could have a really fun and healthy healer meta.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Any combination of these 3 has value. SGE offers high performance, AST offers high safety and great early prog benefits, and SCH fits comfortably in the middle offering good performance, good prog benefits, and good safety. I'd say that's pretty nicely balanced for the most part. If they can preserve that balance and finally fix healer gameplay, we could have a really fun and healthy healer meta.

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I'd agree as long as WHM has a place in that meta after fixing healer gameplay, and isn't relegated to where it's basically always been: "SGE is performance, AST is safety, SCH is a balance between the two, and WHM eats crayons."

I'd rather have WHM stay off meta than have it become like AST. I like playing WHM and if I wanted to play AST or SCH I would pick those instead.

Who cares?

You heal, heal,

Follow mechanics,

Win,

Simple,

Only fools dictates what’s META & by so going for statistics/math numbers bullshit they come up,

At the ends it’s all about performing well & being in synced with everyone & mechanics.

This is not WoW; leave that for that nightmare of a game

WHM needs to have its own selling point. Disregarding gameplay for a moment and strictly discussing performance, it doesn't have the be the strongest healer, but it should at least have something that it is the best at--something that has some amount of value. For example, if WHM could become the best healer for raising--something unneeded in clean runs but helpful in messy runs. That could be something like Reraise, or WHM Triplecast that makes 3 spells instant cast, or maybe something that prevents someone's HP from hitting 0 once. Or Perhaps WHM becomes a healer with access to very potent increased healing action potency buffs or healing received buffs--something that outshines the other healers in that regard and allows them to combo nicely with barriers and regens from either healer.

The balance of healers could look something like this in order of highest DPS output to lowest:

1. SGE - Highest total DPS. Highest sustained healing but lowest burst healing. Good mitigation. No utility. Benefits the most from buff windows.
2. WHM - Second highest total DPS. Good burst healing but low mitigation. Increases total healing output significantly and/or is the best at raising. Benefits from buff windows.
3. SCH - Second lowest total DPS. Good sustained healing, good burst healing, great mitigation. Strongest barriers & has expedient. Offers light party buffs.
4. AST - Lowest total DPS. Greatest burst healing, good sustained healing, good mitigation, greatest MP management. Offers prominent party buffs.

I care what's "meta" as long as my favorite class is literally always weakest-in-role, expansion after expansion, never bringing anything unique to the table, always clunkier than its competition, never allowed to grow or change or gain anything interesting to manage because "LEL it's supposed to be SIMPUL" and therefore always has the stupidest design.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

I care what's "meta" as long as my favorite class is literally always weakest-in-role, expansion after expansion, never bringing anything unique to the table, always clunkier than its competition, never allowed to grow or change or gain anything interesting to manage because "LEL it's supposed to be SIMPUL" and therefore always has the stupidest design.

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And you’re a slave to this META asset/ absurdity of it,

Every expansion always brings changes, embrace that or remain stagnant & complaint like how many others did about SAM (which I actually support its changes).

You be you at the end of the day, but all classes can tip in regardless; only few select deems whats META & what’s not useful (which again is utterly BS)

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Originally Posted by Vencio

And you’re a slave to this META asset/ absurdity of it,

Every expansion always brings changes, embrace that or remain stagnant & complaint like how many others did about SAM (which I actually support its changes).

You be you at the end of the day, but all classes can tip in regardless; only few select deems whats META & what’s not useful (which again is utterly BS)

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Saying "I would like it if my favorite healer wasn't just a watered down version of another healer who objectively has 0 redeeming qualities and offers literally nothing all of the other healers cannot do both in performance and in gameplay for the 6th year running" is in no way, shape, or form being a "Meta Slave."

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Originally Posted by Vencio

And you’re a slave to this META asset/ absurdity of it,

Every expansion always brings changes, embrace that or remain stagnant & complaint like how many others did about SAM (which I actually support its changes).

You be you at the end of the day, but all classes can tip in regardless; only few select deems whats META & what’s not useful (which again is utterly BS)

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I'm currently playing Red Mage because White Mage just blows that hard. It's a horrendously designed job. Just like the rest of the healers. But White Mage is the only healer that people regularly argue, for god knows what reason, *should* be designed this horribly, because asking for more means you're a "mean raider", or a "meta chaser", or whatever other nonsensical justification for keeping it designed like steaming garbage is in vogue this week.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

I'm currently playing Red Mage because White Mage just blows that hard. It's a horrendously designed job. Just like the rest of the healers. But White Mage is the only healer that people regularly argue, for god knows what reason, *should* be designed this horribly, because asking for more means you're a "mean raider", or a "meta chaser", or whatever other nonsensical justification for keeping it designed like steaming garbage is in vogue this week.

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They say the 5 stages of grief are:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

I think many healers are in the bargaining stage where WHM is easy to throw under the bus. Just make Sage good and see how successful it is. You’re right though that it’s stupid to want a brain dead job. If you want to play something that’s brain dead, then play something else. It’s not like you even need to be optimal to clear content anyway so I don’t know why people care. Just be a mediocre healer. No one’s really going to care.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Saying "I would like it if my favorite healer wasn't just a watered down version of another healer who objectively has 0 redeeming qualities and offers literally nothing all of the other healers cannot do both in performance and in gameplay for the 6th year running" is in no way, shape, or form being a "Meta Slave."

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Thank you for putting it better than I ever could.

As for the "Meta" and why it's important and I actually got in a pretty heated debate with a few friends of mine about this.

People take notice of jobs that are always at the top, they don't always understand why, they may not even grasp the fundamental reasons, but it creates a disparity which really only those at the very highest end of the game truly understand but average joe goes "oh you're not X Job, do you have it and can you maybe play that?"

They don't understand the reason why, they just know that "X job is meta"

Now I will say WHM and SGE are far from weak, but they are very much missing utility flexibility outside of some very specific situations and content I.E, nobody can mitigate damage quite like a SGE, nobody can burst heal in a pinch quite like a WHM

But what they have in specialisation, they lack in flexibility of which SCH and AST both have in spades.

Now specialisation itself can be a good thing.

Take P3S as the example, SGE can outright trivalize a certain mechanic with their layered shields and party wide mitigation

But it brings the question, is it necessary? Do you need it? Can it be done easy enough without?

And the answer unfortunately is it's not necessary, you don't need it and it can still be done easily without.

Anything a WHM and SGE can do, the AST/SCH combo has a tool for it and that's not at all a problem with AST/SCH

That's a problem with WHM/SGE being too focused down one route.

They're very good at those routes, but they do not have flexibility and that's why AST/SCH continues to track up world firsts and be the "go to" pairing of many a raid group

[QUOTE=Risvertasashi;5937863]Except it's not.

-snip]

I have to raise a contention point on this.

Dps is not what makes the healer meta, it's just a singular metric that forms a single part of the portrait.

What does make it is the following all combined:

RDPS
ADPS
HP/PS (Health restored per second)
E/HP (how much effective HP a healer can account for via shields/healing/mit)
Utility

And most importantly skill floor and ceiling.

WHM is widely regarded as the healer with the lowest skill floor, easy to pick up and play, easy to become competent with which is great for what is the entry to healing job.

The problem is, the WHM doesn't really "grow" and thus push to a higher skill ceiling so their growth becomes pretty sterile as they hit the low ceiling pretty quickly and if they want to grow beyond it, they have to change healing job. Very much unlike BRD, DRG, MNK, PLD, BLM, SCH and WAR that all grow and increase due to a higher skill ceiling (admittedly the WARs one isnt exactly a gulf but you get the point).

Now there's nothing wrong with being "entry level" but there needs to be that extra level, that thing to strive for and excel at and for WHM it's just not there.

With SGE they actually have a higher floor, they are not pick up and play friendly, their style takes adjusting to, learning their cooldowns, managing them effectively weaving all those OGCDs you have to truly be effective

But that's where it ends for them. Once they reach that plateau, theres no other level unlike AST which can continue to grow and improve beyond that culture shock.

And that's what we are really talking about.

The skill ceiling being a pair of handcuffs to two jobs when SCH/AST can continue to grow beyond becoming "adept" with their kit.

WHM never really grows
SGEs growth ends with becoming adept

And that's because of their specialist kits versus the flexible kits of AST/SCH.

I'm not asking for homogenized kits.

I'm asking for WHM and SGE to have room to continue to grow.

I don't entirely agree that SGE's highest personal damage doesn't really compete with the utility of AST and SCH. SGE is a notable bump ahead of them, not unlike BLM is to SMN and RDM. It also has a lot of mitigation and sustained healing. Both AST and SCH have good tools to offer, but if you're comfortable with the fight, then SGE offers more bang for your buck. Also, I don't think WHM actually has burst healing at the same level as AST. Cure III has some value, but its very expensive for very mild gains over AST's GCD healing, but has has significantly better OGCD burst heals.

I also feel like this idea that WHM is the "easy mode" healer is kind of a lie. It's easy in the sense that being optimal isn't very hard and doesn't require much weaving, which makes it seem easier to play, but WHM can fall very behind very quickly if a fight isn't going well and is the first healer to exhaust their resources by a wide margin. For that reason, I think it's deceptively the hardest healer to play once push comes to shove, which if you're a casual player looking for a free ride is far more likely to occur than an experienced healer.

So I do feel that SGE contests nicely with the other healers whereas WHM doesn't really have any strength that warrants its largely shallow selection of powerful heals. Even SGE who's burst healing power is far more limited is largely going to have a much easier time. If you're looking for easy, you're better off just playing AST even if you're far worse at it. It'll be easier to heal through stuff as one even if you're botching your OGCDs and your card buffs.

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Originally Posted by Vencio

And you’re a slave to this META asset/ absurdity of it,

Every expansion always brings changes, embrace that or remain stagnant & complaint like how many others did about SAM (which I actually support its changes).

You be you at the end of the day, but all classes can tip in regardless; only few select deems whats META & what’s not useful (which again is utterly BS)

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My lad, did you actually just try to lecture a WHM player on "embracing changes" and "not remaining stagnant between expansions"? Yikes.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I don't entirely agree that SGE's highest personal damage doesn't really compete with the utility of AST and SCH. SGE is a notable bump ahead of them, not unlike BLM is to SMN and RDM. It also has a lot of mitigation and sustained healing. Both AST and SCH have good tools to offer, but if you're comfortable with the fight, then SGE offers more bang for your buck. Also, I don't think WHM actually has burst healing at the same level as AST. Cure III has some value, but its very expensive for very mild gains over AST's GCD healing, but has has significantly better OGCD burst heals.

I also feel like this idea that WHM is the "easy mode" healer is kind of a lie. It's easy in the sense that being optimal isn't very hard and doesn't require much weaving, which makes it seem easier to play, but WHM can fall very behind very quickly if a fight isn't going well and is the first healer to exhaust their resources by a wide margin. For that reason, I think it's deceptively the hardest healer to play once push comes to shove, which if you're a casual player looking for a free ride is far more likely to occur than an experienced healer.

So I do feel that SGE contests nicely with the other healers whereas WHM doesn't really have any strength that warrants its largely shallow selection of powerful heals. Even SGE who's burst healing power is far more limited is largely going to have a much easier time. If you're looking for easy, you're better off just playing AST even if you're far worse at it. It'll be easier to heal through stuff as one even if you're botching your OGCDs and your card buffs.

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Oh I 100% agree, SGE is not in a bad spot and that's more because they bring excellent ADPS and extra Mitigation which can and does put a lot of work in, WHM on the other hand what do they have that isn't easily covered for or even replicated?

The truth is, nothing really stands out in their kit at all. Yes they have Bene but AST have Aspected Bene. They have high ADPS but so does SGE with SCH not far behind.

I'd actually say WHM doesn't really have anything that is just theirs, something they can bring to the fight that nobody else can.

SGE has Mitigation and some burst healing with excellent self mobility
AST has a constant stream of Raid buffs and lots of burst healing
SCH has Raid buffs and Mitigation with group mobility
WHM has burst healing....and that's it.

Edit: And that in itself also answers the problem

AST and SCH covering everything that the other two do while bringing something the other two don't.

The symptom is called overloaded kit (however, I personally do not feel they should be nerfed/nor punished for it, that's on SE and I think they should look to other options for WHM especially so it's not a typical default to AST/SCH pretty much for everything)

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Originally Posted by JanVanding

Oh I 100% agree, SGE is not in a bad spot and that's more because they bring excellent ADPS and extra Mitigation which can and does put a lot of work in, WHM on the other hand what do they have that isn't easily covered for or even replicated?

The truth is, nothing really stands out in their kit at all. Yes they have Bene but AST have Aspected Bene. They have high ADPS but so does SGE with SCH not far behind.

I'd actually say WHM doesn't really have anything that is just theirs, something they can bring to the fight that nobody else can.

SGE has Mitigation and some burst healing with excellent self mobility
AST has a constant stream of Raid buffs and lots of burst healing
SCH has Raid buffs and Mitigation with group mobility
WHM has burst healing....and that's it.

Edit: And that in itself also answers the problem

AST and SCH covering everything that the other two do while bringing something the other two don't.

The symptom is called overloaded kit (however, I personally do not feel they should be nerfed/nor punished for it, that's on SE and I think they should look to other options for WHM especially so it's not a typical default to AST/SCH pretty much for everything)

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This has largely been my frustration with how WHM has been designed in comparison to AST/SCH over the years (setting aside how boring the role is as a whole). From my perspective, AST and SCH have been allowed (or designed, or whatever term you want to use) to have a breadth of capability, while ALSO being incredibly strong at those things. If you have a jack-of-all-trades, the corollary to that term is "master of none", and it's there for a reason. Because if you have a system where you can specialize in something at the cost of being weaker in other areas, why the hell would you ever be a specialist if the universalist choice just laughs all the way to the bank being superior to you in every single way including your own specialty?

Wanting WHM to be good, fun to play, and competitive in that landscape is so discouraging because you have two jobs you're competing with that, as far as you can tell, are basically good at everything. And then you're told "no, you can't be good at more than one thing, that's TOO HARD!" What is this double standard? Why are other jobs allowed to have ridiculous Batman toolkits while also having monstrous party damage, spectacular healing, tons of tools to weave, and everything under the sun, while you're stuck with boring slow spells that don't even reward you for being boring and slow?

Overhaul WHM, yesterday please.