supervirus more impactful than proshell

[Ghishlain]

-Snip-

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.

[Verdan]

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.

[Sleigh]

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.

Certainly true that SMN has it, but it'd mean a no SCH comp is semi-forced to use SMN in a T13 type scenario even - if - SMN is otherwise inefficient or ineffective. I'm not saying that it is, in fact I think SMN is going to be head and shoulders above its commonly viewed perception in ARR, but it'd be kind of lousy forcefully locking in a DPS spot just for Supervirus. I know that's not why I feel SCH should be locked in, it's just one part of it for me.

[Risvertasashi]

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...)

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.

[Sidra]

One thing to consider - in a RAID scenario one reason a SCH can provide dps is because the White Mage does such a good job of covering heals - they can basically use every GCD on healing and have the needed kit to do so. However, an AST will need to use their GCDs pretty often for card related abilities - it may take some of the SCH potential DPS away (which could or could not be made up for party dps via the card buffs).

[Manuka]

~snip~

The thing tho is that when it comes to endgame raiding eHP gains/ mitigation are significantly greater than raw healing so HP/s and the like means very little, especially in regards to WHM since a decent chunk ends up in overheals anyway. The reason WHM's future is looking dim is due to fact that their sole niche is being encroached on, their potent AoE heals.

The way SE set-up most raid instances is that you got your multi-target mechanics and your occasional raid busters. SCH tends to struggle with these unless Eos is on standby an ready with CD's, if not they usually haveta spam succor at a hefty time/mp cost or split embrace an physick duty. Either way it's a timely endeavour which can cause deaths if the next round of mechanics come before they finish. This is where the WHM shines, pop medica I/II or cure III an the jobs done in a fraction of the time. Assuming the AST's medica variant + Wheel of Fate isn't severely underpowered and toss in the odd indomitability it should bring those HP bars into the safe zone in about the same timeframe.

If that is the case what reason is there to bring a WHM? They don't bring any significant party buffs, they're heavily mp gated, their dps capability is poor due to said mp gating and with protect being normalized their mitigation is poor as well. Plus considering ASTs Synastry they'll prob be have an easier time solo-healing the tanks while SCH dps's than WHM currently. Their biggest boon to the party will more or less be stoneskin for tank busters an the like but assuming Disable isn't underpowered/long CD AST should be able to make up for that as well.

It doesn't help that of the five new skills for WHM only tetra is really good in regards to raiding (hopefully a respectable CD) with asylum potentially having its moments. The two dps skills are nigh useless, maybe two an a half if the dps aspect of Assize relies on acc. But I could be wrong an Ast is really underpowered or maybe some new traits could introduce potent strengths into their current kit but if not I def see SCH/AST being the go-to healer combo for early raid progression. That said, WHM will prob be god-tier in all other content lol

[UOdhn]

But to the point; Scholars have a supportive healing role with the current meta and very likely will keep it in Heavensward. Especially when undergeared for content and/or progressing. I don't doubt any composition isn't viable, be it whm/ast, ast/sch or whm/sch. But scholars have, without doubt, an edge as supportive healer compared to White Mage and Astrologian. Astrologians have some affinity towards the role Scholars have with the current meta, but nowhere as good.

Someone must've been looking at the cards. How can we know that they have an edge as a supportive healer without first fully understanding and knowing what the Astrologian is bringing to the table? Yeah, ok, we've seen a few spells, but so far no potencies or anything else related to their toolkit.

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.

While true, do keep in mind that HPS is a misconceptualized value. HPS is near meaningless so long as the party has enough HP to survive whatever the next mechanic might be. Whether it comes from one or the other is also meaningless. I suppose the only way HPS may be useful is when it is compared to Overhealing. Even if a SCH can do 1.2k HPS with 150 DPS contributions, if they're overhealing by quite a bit, does it really matter? So long as your healers are working together as a team (which they should be), shenanigans could be had regardless.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Someone must've been looking at the cards. How can we know that they have an edge as a supportive healer without first fully understanding and knowing what the Astrologian is bringing to the table? Yeah, ok, we've seen a few spells, but so far no potencies or anything else related to their toolkit.

It's been mentioned in a live stream that they have less DPS potential than Scholar and White mage. Which is pretty much what Scholars do when they're not healing. There's no specifics yet whether the card abilities eat away on their cooldown locks. Even if it did, you simply have to identify the right windows to draw cards and/or weave it in with the instant healing ability.

edit: Also, it's based on how current meta works. Unless Astrologian healing output is severely weaker than White Mage and Astrologian - Which I've mentioned in another post -, Astrologian is more suitable for the main healer role rather than supportive role. They'll only be drawing cards once every 30-35 seconds and not majority of their GCD on damage spells.

[UOdhn]

It's been mentioned in a live stream that they have less DPS potential than Scholar and White mage. Which is pretty much what Scholars do when they're not healing. There's no specifics yet whether the card abilities eat away on their cooldown locks. Even if it did, you simply have to identify the right windows to draw cards and/or weave it in with the instant healing ability.

edit: Also, it's based on how current meta works. Unless Astrologian healing output is severely weaker than White Mage and Astrologian - Which I've mentioned in another post -, Astrologian is more suitable for the main healer role rather than supportive role. They'll only be drawing cards once every 30-35 seconds and not majority of their GCD on damage spells.

Yes, but DPS doesn't equal support. Where did this idea that support = DPS come from to begin with?

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Yes, but DPS doesn't equal support. Where did this idea that support = DPS come from to begin with?

I never mentioned that support equals dps. It's supportive healer, not support. Supportive healers aid main healer when needed. If astrologians were to take that role, they'd only be using cards every 30 seconds while having a lesser dps output when they do not need to help out with healing.