White Mage vs Scholar - Why is White Mage lacking?

[Coldea]

2) Make Shroud of Saints recover a % of MP instead of a flat amount (correct me if I’m wrong here, but I believe Shroud is currently a flat amount of MP restored).

Shroud of Saint has a potency, which means that the mp you regen using it depends only on your weapon damage. Upgrade to a better weapon and you get more MP. 'It feels like a flat amount' because you dont change your weapon very often.

[DarkmoonVael]

White mage is not lacking in any way, shape or form. What seems to be happening is that you are selectively choosing what are good points and bad points for each class on an arbitrary basis. First of all, scholar can not aoe heal any where as near as effectivly as a white mage. Your argument on this is spurious at best. A white mage has 3 very powerful aoe heals, heals that come with no riders at all. Scholars can put out some good aoe regen, only when all the cooldowns are available. White mage presses one of the 3 aoe heal buttons at anytime to make lots of people not dead at once. White mage comes with the best regen spells in the game, something you seem to not acknowledge either, these are very powerful in their own right. They also come the most powerful healing spells in the game, benediction, which is THE spell that can seperate an excellent white mage and a medicore one, knowing how and when to use this is a skill in itself.
Also, would love to see you manage these amazing scholar aoe heals with selene out O.o
I raid as scholar due to my raid group needing a scholar, have played scholar end game since 2.0, and usually main whm where i can. I can not disagree with your biased, unbalanced analysis any more..........

[Kempast]

I think WHM don't lack as a healer class but what I don't like about it is that instant heal, Benediction.
The animation takes so much to be done and my tank usually dies before I recover all of his HP, this makes the SCH a little superior with his instant heal, Lustrate. It doesn't recover all the HP, but at least is truly instant.

[Slib]

White mage is not lacking in any way, shape or form. What seems to be happening is that you are selectively choosing what are good points and bad points for each class on an arbitrary basis. First of all, scholar can not aoe heal any where as near as effectivly as a white mage. Your argument on this is spurious at best. A white mage has 3 very powerful aoe heals, heals that come with no riders at all. Scholars can put out some good aoe regen, only when all the cooldowns are available. White mage presses one of the 3 aoe heal buttons at anytime to make lots of people not dead at once. White mage comes with the best regen spells in the game, something you seem to not acknowledge either, these are very powerful in their own right. They also come the most powerful healing spells in the game, benediction, which is THE spell that can seperate an excellent white mage and a medicore one, knowing how and when to use this is a skill in itself.
Also, would love to see you manage these amazing scholar aoe heals with selene out O.o
I raid as scholar due to my raid group needing a scholar, have played scholar end game since 2.0, and usually main whm where i can. I can not disagree with your biased, unbalanced analysis any more..........

First off, I mentioned that with the current fights that I've done (All non coil and up to T11) do not require a White Mages wonderful AoE Healing to get through. It can be done with Eos, Succor and shielding.

AoE doesn't come out on people like a tank takes melee hits all the time from bosses with a big burst every now and then. So to me, White Mage is not very special or unique.

When you do Turn 9 with Mega Flare as a White Mage alone, you will need to ask your team members to go Vitality Spec. Why? Because Stoneskin wouldn't be enough to cover a Mega Flare. As Scholar, you have many damage reduction/prevention options at your disposal.

When you do Turn 11, you have Virus (Scholar has INT reduction), Sacred Soil, Fey Covenant to make up for more Magic Defense than what Protect gives if you were a White Mage and Adlos which cast much faster than stoneskin and guess what, since you are a scholar, you have much MUCH better mp generation, so you don't feel the MP loss as much as if you were to stoneskin EVERY member in the group before that nerve gas goes out.

In turn 10, you need to get adlos off fast on specific targets that are about to get a debuff. This can be done WHILE healing the tank at the same time with your fairy and your ever so friendly Lustrates which save your tanks if you happen to not have them topped off before hand. Also, Thanks to Eos and knowing when the tank takes burst damage, you can even solo heal the last phase of T10 while tossing at least 3 dots on the boss and still keep the group up while having perfect MP.

I've actually been able to raise people 6 times in a row in a Turn 9 fight and not even have my MP dented. If a White Mage did this, they would be begging for ballad.

The list on how white mage is lacking can go on and on. Sure, for dungeons, White Mage is fine. Holy is fun. For raid content, Both healers are good together, but to be honest, SCOB could be fully solo healed bringing more dps to the group. Even while solo healing it scholar could put out DPS too and not require a bard for ballad, ever.

White mage doesn't have many good points. The only good point is they are awesome in PvP for being a healer with excellent Peel/CC and bring extra AoE healing to groups, which to my knowledge isn't required as of T11.

[DarkmoonVael]

snip

You are being so selective it is not even funny now. If you honestly think the entire of final coil (and it seems turn 9 as well) doesnt require a white mage, please ask your group to drop their white mage and that you, as a scholar will solo heal everything.

Lets take your stance on white mages protect, which lasts 30 mins. You seem to think a couple of buffs that can be use every few minutes on a scholar somehow makes this obsolete. Now a good healer here would say every little bit of mitigation helps. I run scholar in my raid group, and am glad thta there is a white mage with us to mitigate that little bit more damage, especially since the amount of damage that protect mitigates over the course of the raid adds up.
Turn 11, you use the example of a white mage stoneskinning the entire party in combat. There are very few places that this is done, you are comparing something that is not usually expected of a white mage, with something that is the schoalrs bread and butter in a fight; in-combat shielding!!!!!! Tell me, does your white mage do any healing in this fight at all, it sounds as though you think they sit their twiddling their tumbs for this fight.
Turn 10: your example is "right guys, what the scholar does here is use their unique healing spells the way they should, and shield the tank for a hit and then use lustrate to top them off". Uh huh. So your fellow healer here, that nice white mage, is he/she perchance sat there twiddling their thumbs yet again for another raid? (I am guessing no to this question)

GUYS GUYS GUYS, scholars are really lacking compared to whm, here is why:
Their AoE healing is not nearly as fast as a whm, leaving people vulnerable with mass aoe damage (look at shiva ex wind move, or most primals for that example). Scholars have to blow a lot of cooldowns just to get any where near as profficient in their AoE healing as a whm.
They are unable to shield a party member any higher than 1100 usually (unless crit adlo), i mean this just sucks compared to white mages 18% traited stoneskin.
They have no cure 3, i mean how bad would it be to have a healer that couldnt heal everyone by approx 2k health with one spell.
Shroud of saints is insane on whm, regens mp AND dumps aggro, i mean wow! Why cant scholar have such an awesome spell like this that help tanks out with aggro management whilst gaining mana back.
They have to choose between fairies, meaning they dont get full access to their spells, unlike whm who have full access to their spells at all times, making them more proficient in their healing.
They get no single target regen spell, which is really really powerful when used properly. You can stick this on a tank and it helps heal the damage it takes from single target boss moves.
Whm mage gets awesome procs, scholars procs suck. Free cure 2 anyone? Half price cure 3 anyone?

Both healing classes in this game are absolutely exceptional at what they do, they both have a very different role within the party for healing. What you seem to be doing here is very selectivly compared the 2 classes, with a heck of a lot of biased to the scholar, biased that seems to be founded soley on the premis "scholar is really good at what its designed to do and how it fits in with a raid party, why cant the whm do EXACTLY whay the scholar can do". Neither healer can do what the other does, both bring a lot to a raid. I hope your healing parnter hasnt read this threat, it seems that you think they do nothing in your raid group.

[Slib]

You are being so selective ...

I'm trying to point out how Scholar can do things that a White Mage generally can not. Scholar brings MORE to the fight than a White Mage. Sure, the extra mitigation is nice. Is it necessary? No, as long as people stay alive. I do love having our White Mage there, but would would be even better was if he could put out as much DPS as I can in a raid fight while maintaining effective healing. For a White Mage, that is VERY risky and also will run you dry of MP fast in a long term fight.

What I am trying to get at is perfect play. I agree that having a white mage is nice, but it could be better and more on par with Scholar. Having a pet heal while you are dpsing and having Lustrates be your Guardian Angel is far better than tossing a Regen on the tank, swapping into Cleric Stance, then someone messes up and you have to Bene them because they got hit by Lunar Dynamo and they are about to get meteor striked. 5 Minute cooldown used when it could have been 2 of 3 charges that have a 1 minute cooldown.

You also don't always need magic defense in raids. Most of the painful magic AoE happens during a phase transition, like T9 and T11. That's where fey covenant takes over as being a staple in the Scholar utility, along with sacred soil and succor + 10% stoneskin (if needed)

Stop thinking that I think White Mage is completely USELESS. It just has a lot less Utility/Versatility than Scholar.

[StrangeBard]

I've actually been able to raise people 6 times in a row in a Turn 9 fight and not even have my MP dented. If a White Mage did this, they would be begging for ballad.

My only problem with your argument is that you had to raise people six times in a row. As a player of both WHM and SCH I feel like that is just bad healing on your part. If I am having to raise excessively as a healer I start to keep a closer eye on things to see what is going wrong.

In general I love both jobs. WHM gives me so much healing power that I can keep people alive a bit better; however, SCH has the flexibility that allows them to stance dance a little better. Damage over time abilities mean more time is devoted to healing and less to throwing out DPS. Also SCH has 3 damage prevention options: a weaker stoneskin, galvanize, and sacred soil. Stoneskin is the only long lasting one there so while sacred soil and galvanize are nice to have the timing on them has to be precise.

[Cynfael]

My only problem with your argument is that you had to raise people six times in a row. As a player of both WHM and SCH I feel like that is just bad healing on your part.

When people require excessive raising, it's usually their own fault for sunbathing in avoidable AoEs and failing to handle OHKO mechanics.

While there are a lot of bad healers out there, I wouldn't be too quick to judge. No healer is going to save players from standing directly underneath Heavensfall or running off with Thermionic Beam, for example.

[Slib]

Shroud of Saint has a potency, which means that the mp you regen using it depends only on your weapon damage. Upgrade to a better weapon and you get more MP. 'It feels like a flat amount' because you dont change your weapon very often.

Tested this just now.

I110 wep had 212 MP Regen per tick
Level 1 Weathered Cane had 212 MP Regen per tick.

Seems to be a flat amount, because I even lost some piety in that.

[NorthernLadMSP]

Shroud of Saint has a potency, which means that the mp you regen using it depends only on your weapon damage. Upgrade to a better weapon and you get more MP. 'It feels like a flat amount' because you dont change your weapon very often.

Sorry, this is completely wrong. Shroud recovers a flat amount, no matter what weapon or piety score you have.