Quote Originally Posted by Ghishlain View Post
As you have rightfully mentioned, a raw HPS isn't important, it's about having the HPS at the right times. With that being said, I do find something seriously disturbing about the fact that a Sch + EOS combination CAN output as much HPS as a WHM. WHMs biggest perceived boon is the ability to output HPS. If a SCH + Eos can do the same HPS as a WHM, there's something amiss. Keep in mind I was doing this HPS with SCH + Eos WHILE outputting 150+ DPS during a pre-P3 progression group pre-Echo. That speaks volumes about SCHs power level right there. If SCH can do 1.2K HPS AND 150+ DPS and a WHM can only do 1.2K HPS and 50+ DPS, that makes the SCH a better contributor to the party dynamic (when looking at purely raw numbers). It should be more like a SCH can do 1K HPS while outputting 150 DPS while a WHM should be able to output 1.4K HPS and go nuts in the healing department.

The funny thing is, T13 is the current hardest heal check in the game, and the fight is almost perfectly structured to make use of all Whispering Dawn CDs at the right times. You'll generally always have Whispering Dawn up for Mega Flare into Rage of Bahamut in P2, you'll always have it up for Mega Flare in P4. You'll also always have Fey Covenant up for P1 and P2 Gigaflare and every shared Ahk Morn. Likewise, you'll always have a Virus for every Giga Flare. T13 almost feels like it was made with the SCH toolkit in mind and I hope this isn't the case for Alex.

With that being said, I hope they continue to design SCH with the current trend in mind. To me, SCH has always been about managing Aetherflow and cooldowns. Everything about a SCH screams less about MP and more about being able to manage your abilities. By adding more abilities to the mix, SCH now have to continue to think ahead in the game and feel where they feel are the best moments to use which abilities. Having ANOTHER ability tied to Aetherflow stacks means there will be more choices to make and more quick thought into your next few actions. SCHs should be about versatility and management. WHM should be about their immediate impact on the field.

[edit] Just to go back to your comment about my value in SCH DPS - it's less I value SCH DPS and more I value the contribution SCH brings to the group and DPS is just one of those factors. SCH contribution feels much higher (when played properly) versus a WHM.
Well... WD is amazing, but to continue with the T13 example: Rouse + WD alone won't heal people up in time for Rage. Or in T12, it's uptime is not sufficient to heal through the p3 Flames of Rebirth spam (Although when it is up, it's very nice).

I really don't like HP/S as expressed by parsers because it doesn't represent things like that. (And using HoTs always makes the overheal counters shoot up...)

Quote Originally Posted by Verdan View Post
The reason supervirus isn't on the table like protshell is comes from that it's an arcanist skill, not a scholar one. Summoners are still able to provide it, even without a scholar around, making balancing healing easier because losing scholar doesn't mean it's gone. If you wanna nuts and bolts try and compare White Mage and Scholar(and holy shit do you guys love to), sure it's something the scholar has over the white mage. However, as far as raid makeup goes it's not a thing where losing scholar means losing supervirus, which is the whole reason behind the protshell changes.
The thing is, AST also gets their own similar ability (Although a poster on the previous page didn't think it would be viable for a reason I'm not clear on...). If it does stack without a shared antibodies lockout, SMN + AST will be quite powerful without needing SCH.

And, of course, there's Path, Dragon Kick, etc.