What makes WHM special? Nothing anymore.

[Kosmos992k]

I suspect we're running into the same kinds of people here, and most of these people clearly haven't even leveled more than one healer to compare and contrast the performance of the two.

Scholar and WHM leveled to 50 quite nicely in ARR with their relics to boot, so yeah...whatever. The problem with your attitude is that you think you are absolutely correct and I and anyone who disagrees with you is absolutely wrong, a binary point of view that allows for nothing except right and wrong. That's fine in matters of fact, matters that are specific and quantifiable. I'm talking about how it looks and feels to me when I play, guess what, those are things that you can't quantify and argue with.

You made this long diatribe about people who refuse to a acknowledge when they are wrong, and yet you are so fixed and unmoving in your belief in your own correctness that you don't even for a moment acknowledge that there are other ways of looking at an issue such as identity that are not linked to specific arguments over skill potency or comparisons of skill sets.

Feel free to mock whoever you want Richard, it certainly reveals more about your personality than those you are mocking.

[PetiteMalFleur]

Scholar and WHM leveled to 50 quite nicely in ARR with their relics to boot, so yeah...whatever.

RichardButte is not pointing this out to discredit the opinions of those who have not experienced current endgame but rather to illustrate how different healing is now compared to 2.x. You are quite literally comparing the healing classes in two different games.

I leveled ast first and felt ast was perfectly fine at 60 because I was thinking about how it would play in content like T13. Once I set out to level my other two healing jobs by level 52 both of them they outclassed my level 60 ast because of the incoming buffs they added to their toolkit changing my opinion about the viability of ast.

I appreciate his tone was dismissive, but putting that aside, there is a reason his perspective keeps being brought up in this discussion.

[Kosmos992k]

...to illustrate how different healing is now compared to 2.x. You are quite literally comparing the healing classes in two different games.

This right here is a problem for SE to figure out. Making changes to the existing jobs in ARR going forward into HW that are significant enough that people can say "You are quite literally comparing the healing classes in two different games." goes to the heart of the issue regarding identity. Players built up their character and expectation in ARR and then along comes HW and things change significantly. Which leads to people feeling that the identity has changed, or is lacking.

I understand the need to balance existing classes/jobs when adding new ones. However making changes that alter the way something feels to players, risks some players feeling that something has been changed and/or lost. But, no amount of argument about how the new skills make up for it because they are awesome will alter the fact that some players feel as they do.

My problem with the line of argument in this topic is that it has come down to people throwing skill definitions and numbers around as the only things that matter, and then dismissing anything else as irrelevant because it's not part of that numbers game. But, those aren't the only things that matter, they are simply the most tangible things that people can use as 'weapons' in an argument. I think I will just have to recognize that no matter what I say or how many times I say it, discussion about the identity of player classes/jobs in this game will always devolve into competitive theory-crafting, and dismissal of everything else as redundant fluff.

In which case, perhaps further input from myself is redundant, or as someone called it further up this topic "pointless".

It may not be what some want to hear, but I think whm's thing is pretty much just having big heals. CD's real big, AoE''s real big, heals real big, everything real big.
Sorry, couldn't resist

You forgot the BIG stick...
Sorry, I couldn't resist either

[Fevelle]

...

No one wants to understand this. They seem only to care about how "competitive" a healer is. The matter for me is the feeling of the class. I never demanded potency increase or any broken thing. To be honest, the only thing I demanded here was an added effect to Stone II, to not be completely useless spell after lv. 54 and a change to Enhanced Medica.

[EinherjarLucian]

No one wants to understand this. They seem only to care about how "competitive" a healer is. The matter for me is the feeling of the class. I never demanded potency increase or any broken thing. To be honest, the only thing I demanded here was an added effect to Stone II, to not be completely useless spell after lv. 54 and a change to Enhanced Medica.

But... literally nothing changed for WHMs in 3.07. There was no nerf. They weren't decreased in any way. AST was given a buff because they not only felt weaker than WHM and SCH, the numbers supported the feeling. I guarantee you, SE wouldn't have made those changes if they hadn't pored over terabytes of combat metrics. So, if you couple "ASTs feel underpowered" with "the data supports their feeling", they're going to make that change.

I think a problem I see is where WHMs feel that Proshell was "taken" from them. It wasn't. It was rolled into the baseline Protect ability. Stoneskin's mitigation buff was, in fact, taken away in 3.0, but they got a cast time buff on it. I could see getting up in arms if Galvanize was given a 30 minute duration, or Stoneskin's duration was reduced to 30 seconds, but neither of those things should happen if the designers are doing the right thing. Those two changes were made so that a WHM in the party wasn't mandatory. Before, a two-SCH party was passable and fine for DF content, but you'd be insane not to have a WHM/SCH combo in your group because of the way the two complement each other. If anything, an AST could now more easily replace a SCH.

Adding that effect to Stone II and giving Enhanced Medica a buff? Sure, why not, that sounds fine. It'd be nice for Stone II not to be completely useless post-54, I'll totally agree with you there.

Going back to a question I had earlier though... what do you think would be good to make a WHM feel unique, if "stronger heals" wasn't part of the picture. In other words, assume that the number one requirement is "healing power parity" between all three jobs, because their job should be "heals the party". What kind of interesting fluff should WHM have that would set them apart? What would make them "feel" different?

[Tint]

What would make them "feel" different?

i think a potency increase in dirunal and removing the HoTs from ast would give the whm the identity as HoT healer back.

ast is already the instant healer, why do he need hots? :x

[EinherjarLucian]

i think a potency increase in dirunal and removing the HoTs from ast would give the whm the identity as HoT healer back.

ast is already the instant healer, why do he need hots? :x

Again: Potency changes are off the table, here. What can be added to WHM, or changed about WHM, that would make it more "unique" and "special"? All healing jobs have HoTs, even SCH. Let's add an additional rule to this thought-exercise, "suggestions to remove something from another job are also off the table".

[Blood-Aki]

No one wants to understand this. They seem only to care about how "competitive" a healer is. The matter for me is the feeling of the class. I never demanded potency increase or any broken thing. To be honest, the only thing I demanded here was an added effect to Stone II, to not be completely useless spell after lv. 54 and a change to Enhanced Medica.

So? stone 2 became outdated, You don't even really use stone 1 unless you need the heavy effect. This is how leveling works, some skills may replace others. You don't see SMNs using emerald carbuncle after gettiing gardua or topaz after getting titan, (they have to take off gem, but even if they could, still wouldn't) they are simply inferior to thieir predecessors.

[Fevelle]

@Blood-Aki This is not how a good game design goes. I have played all FFs before, and the one thing I learned is that everything, even outdated abilities can have a good use in certain situations. Adding utility to a skill that would be replaced not only makes it have a situational use beyond LV54 but enhances low-level gameplay. There are a lot of players coming to the game after Heavensward. We didn't need it before because Stone 2 was our best spammable spell after Holy.

@EinherjarLucian I would be happy enough with more procs for "chain healing" just like we have for targeted healing (Cure > Freecure > Cure II > Overcure > Cure III) but for AOE. Enhanced Medica could proc with Medica or Medica II to make the next Medica spell have increased range to 20 yalms or cost less MP.

There are a lot of things that can be done with only traits to make WHM more unique, like adding a "Cup of Life" Trait that returns X% of the overhealed amount to the caster, they could also add a single target Haste spell with long cooldown (most previous FF had Haste as a WHM spell), or create a "Pray" skills that heals for a minimal amount all the party members without costing any MP, so we could try to save our DPS friend who is stuck with 10% health at 90 yalms from you.

For a bigger change, since everyone now have HoTs, and SCH is the Shield Healer, AST is the Lightspeed Healer, WHM could be even more of an AOE healer, with better range for all skills.

[EinherjarLucian]

@EinherjarLucian I would be happy enough with more procs for "chain healing" just like we have for targeted healing (Cure > Freecure > Cure II > Overcure > Cure III) but for AOE. Enhanced Medica could proc with Medica or Medica II to make the next Medica spell have increased range to 20 yalms or cost less MP.

There are a lot of things that can be done with only traits to make WHM more unique, like adding a "Cup of Life" Trait that returns X% of the overhealed amount to the caster, they could also add a single target Haste spell with long cooldown (most previous FF had Haste as a WHM spell), or create a "Pray" skills that heals for a minimal amount all the party members without costing any MP, so we could try and sabe our DPS friend who is stuck at 10% health at 90 yalms from you.

For a bigger change, since everyone now have HoTs, and SCH is the Shield Healer, AST is the Lightspeed Healer, WHM could be even more of an AOE healer, with better range for all skills.

Okay, here we go! These are great ideas. "Better AoE Radius". Maybe some CDs that give you a guaranteed proc of Freecure and/or Overcure, like the Reload mechanic for MCH, or like Sharpcast. Maybe a literal "chain heal" spell that bounces from target to target, like that spell in WoW; you can cast it on the closest person and it will bounce its way over to someone who really needs it. Whole-Arena or very-long-range heals (maybe a CD that gives you +100y radius and range on your next healing spell?)