Pros and Cons of each Healer Role

[Rawrz]

The key item is that these are generic comparisons. They're intended to outline the advantages and disadvantages of Jobs.

You can and should file "MP management" under the "pro" category for SCH
You can and should file "Highest Sustained DPS" under the "pro" category for WHM
This is by no means trying to say that WHM is always the superior choice for sustained dps.

On the other hand, saying both that "SCH has the highest sustained" and "SCH is the most flexible" implies that SCH is always the superior choice for sustained dps, which just isn't true.


One more example:
if comparing BLM and SMN, you might say BLM has higher sustained DPS, but poorer mobility. That isnt to say that in practice BLM will always have higher dps 100% of the time or that its always superior to SMN. It's only a reflection of the rotation. However, if you were to say SMN has higher sustained DPS based on the scenarios where it can pull better numbers, it misrepresents SMN has being completely superior at both dps and mobility.

That word sustained though o-o Kind of implies that as X approaches infinity, one DPS has the highest at infinite. MP is a real crutch. If you're bringing a WHM to 100% DPS, then you aren't going to be having as good of a time as someone who brought a real DPS. Selene can heal over 30% [being conservative, Ive had allot of fights where I've main healed (Total Embrace heals>Their total heals) with just Selene compared to the other healer], so the SCH really doesn't need to drop Cleric Stance to help. Burst fights like SSS really can get your mana down on a WHM, but you EASILY hit numbers higher than an SCH at that time. After those 3 minutes of spamming, youll be scraping your MP reserves even with using Assize and Shroud to their full potential, where as a Scholar will be near 100%. How you should list WHM Dps strength and SCH's DPS strength is:

WHM: Highest AOE and Single Target BURST DPS. (AOE: Aero III, Pom + Holy + ASSIZE DX.Single:Aero III, Aero II, Aero, (Assize, Fluid Aura, Pom Pick 2) Stone III
SCH: Highest Sustained and Mana Nuetral DPS. Most Capable of healing contributions while DPSing. (Super Virus, Embrace/Rouse, Possibility of consecutively weaved Lustrates/Indoms without impacting DPS)

If say during A6 when the 5 mirages sit there, and there were MASSIVE damage spikes, I would main heal that as the SCH to let the WHM push our DPS. The WHM can easily shred my DoT based damage in the amount of time her aoes allow us to kill them, because that is a WHMs strength. Front Loaded burst.

[Llynd]

Hey rawrz, ain't you the one dpsing at 1220+ dps, according to the YT vid' ? If so, im not even sure a whm can go higher than this lol.

( sorry it has no link with the subject)


Hum i totally agree with what rawrz said anyway

[Kaurie]

The key item is that these are generic comparisons. They're intended to outline the advantages and disadvantages of Jobs.

You can and should file "MP management" under the "pro" category for SCH
You can and should file "Highest Sustained DPS" under the "pro" category for WHM
This is by no means trying to say that WHM is always the superior choice for sustained dps.

No, you should file "Highest Sustained DPS" under SCH and "Highest Burst DPS" under WHM. That is because scholar has the highest sustained DPS and WHM has the highest burst DPS.

On the other hand, saying both that "SCH has the highest sustained" and "SCH is the most flexible" implies that SCH is always the superior choice for sustained dps, which just isn't true.

It is mostly true, it just isn't true in very short fights. Even then, it's pretty close.

One more example:
if comparing BLM and SMN, you might say BLM has higher sustained DPS, but poorer mobility. That isnt to say that in practice BLM will always have higher dps 100% of the time or that its always superior to SMN. It's only a reflection of the rotation. However, if you were to say SMN has higher sustained DPS based on the scenarios where it can pull better numbers, it misrepresents SMN has being completely superior at both dps and mobility.

I feel you are confused on the definition of sustained.

Sustained: continuing for an extended period or without interruption.

Black Mage definitely has better sustained DPS, as it has infinite MP. That said, SMN can sustain damage for quite a long time. The difference between these two is not as drastic as WHM/SCH in terms of sustained. It also matters for BLM/SMN if you are referring to AoE or single target.

[winsock]

That word sustained though o-o Kind of implies that as X approaches infinity, one DPS has the highest at infinite.

Let's assume you're correct as it will be much easier to see the problem with this implication.

When speaking of sustained DPS, it is usually used in contrast with Burst DPS. If you use infinity, what impact does that have on MNK (or any class that has the potential of running out of resources)? Once MNK runs out of TP its average starts diminishing. Because the base average will be lowered substantially, the period in which the MNK had TP would need to be considered burst. By adding the timeframe, you eliminate the benefit of distinguishing between burst and sustain.

Using a different timeframe doesn't really help either since timeframes for content arent constant.
^ this is the problem. You're taking a non-constant variable, baking it into a constant variable, and treating the new value as constant.

If you're doing this with time, why not do it with other non-constants like mobility? Let's treat mobility as if you must be moving indefinitely. Now we just bake that into dps and..... Oh man! SCH has more sustained DPS than BLM!!!!!!!!!!!

[winsock]

Sustained: continuing for an extended period or without interruption.

Pointing out that 0 MP is an interruption

[Khalithar]

I like that white mage is the most direct of the healers, no shields or cards to worry about. You hit a button and get immediate results. Also, white mage is the only class with the ability to blind the player and the rest of the party (Holy).

[Ghishlain]

I think at this point in time, most healer can agree with the following:

• WHM has the higher average DPS shorter fight(s) (Hummelfaust A6S)
• SCH has the higher average DPS in longer fight(s) (A5S A7S A8S)
• In practice, SCH has a higher average DPS than WHM (Hummelfaust A5S A6S A7S A8S)

@winsock
You should probably define what you consider are "proper" variables to measure this then, since you seem to have issue with how everyone else is defining "sustained DPS".

With that being said, you're technically right in your definition of "sustained DPS" but to be perfectly frank, I'm pretty certain most people reading this are getting very annoyed at your rigid and literal interpretation of the term too.

Most healers understand the difference DPS kits each healer can bring and realize which kit is more optimal for which situation.

[JackFross]

The problem with this discussion is that some people are equating healers to dps, when healers are not dps.

Healers can DO dps, sure, but a Healer hitting MP-Zero is significantly more detrimental to the raid than a dps hitting TP-Zero or MP-Zero.

Looking to fflogs to compare these things is also incredibly misleading! When actually poking through the top WHM v top SCH on most of those fights, the top SCHs are all near 100% dps uptime, whereas the top WHMs are all sharing the healing approximately 50-50 with the SCH partner. The only WHM in the top on any of the fights who doesn't do this is the one who has the top in Hummel/Ratfinx, where their other healer does 100% of the healing. Comparing Healer dps on A5S is also really not super fair, because SCH's main damage comes from DoTs, which can be snapshotted on tiny-gob just before he goes big for Boost, and B2+M will last through the entire duration, for instance, where A3 will die when M does and A2 will die when B1 or A1 do for the SCH.

Vast disparity in the responsibilities of a SCH doing dps compared to a WHM, in general. It tends to be more 65-35 with SCH dps and 50-50 with WHM dps, in terms of healing responsibility.

It's just important to note that "sustained dps" for a Healer is a different concept than "sustained dps" for a DPS Job. Where we expect a DPS to maintain their damage levels throughout an encounter, because they're doing nothing but dealing damage (so someone dropping to 900 in a Midas Savage fight is just not doing their Job), a healer's "sustained" dps is judged more on just an extended period of DPS uptime - who will do more in that time?


I don't personally have experience doing Savage raiding on healer when the content is relevant, but I will say that, in everything that I do as healer, my WHM tends to out-perform my SCH in raw damage numbers. Always. Through Midas normal and through dungeons. The one thing that becomes an issue is Mana, in general. WHM does more AoE and ST dps in dungeons than SCH, but SCH never has to worry about Mana, where WHM does if the tank decides to be a loser and pull 3 mobs at a time.

But it really depends how you define "sustained" for healers. SCH absolutely has better sustained if you consider a situation where you need to replace a non-DoT spell with a heal. The more GCDs of Broil/Stone III that you drop for heals, the farther ahead SCH will pull. However, if you look at sustained DPS over a timed segment of a fight, with no downtime for heals, WHM will always come out ahead, since S3 just flat does more damage than Broil. The pps of the WHM rotation is strictly higher than the pps of the SCH rotation. That's just facts. It being impractical to have a WHM go full dps in a raid scenario doesn't imply that WHM has less sustained dps than SCH.


The reason WHM doesn't dps has nothing to do with Mana.
It has to do with the support that WHM can give the raid in Cleric Stance - read: none at all.

[Kaurie]

Pointing out that 0 MP is an interruption

That is the point, no? That a WHM has worse sustained DPS due to MP constraints?

[Ghishlain]

-Snip-

I like your input, thank you for that. I do agree with the vast majority of what you said.

I'd like to highlight a point based on your text though - Healer DPS is very dynamic in nature. It's dependent on the fight and the healer's comfort level, the comfort and capability of your healing partner, the division of healing responsibility, the tanks and DPS performance, and just how the mechanics of the overall fight unfold.

While we can say "Yes, WHM has the higher DPS potential than SCH" as per S-E's SSS number, in practice this may not actually happens for a myriad of reasons ranging from "Well, the WHM ate that mechanic and died" to "The SCH provides better long term DPS due to how the kit is structured". Likewise, the opposite could be true because "Well, the SCH ate that mechanic and died" to "The WHM is providing excellent DPS in that 90s window we have to kill Hummelfaust".

I personally think because of the way the healing meta is right now, it affords SCH more DPS up time because "it's expected" (thus going back to the 65-35 and 50-50 healing responsibility comparison posted). If the focus were to shift back to equal healing and DPS responsibilities, would the SCH still be ahead? I honestly can't say what the answer to this question is but would argue the DPS contribution of WHM and SCH would be more even and the type of fight they're participating in and the group composition would determine which one of them would be ahead more often then naught.

And just to add to the previous paragraph, SCH DPS contribution is overall higher because of the way the healer Meta actually is and I'm pretty certain most people won't dispute that.

However, attempting to shoehorn a definition of sustained DPS based on factors X, Y, and Z which can be countered by factors A, B, and C probably isn't doing anyone in the discussion any help at this point and probably detracted any would-be-readers (if they're still reading) of any substance at this point in time. And yes, I'm guilty of letting this discussion drag out for as long as it has as well so I think I'm just going to leave it at that now.

*Poofs like a faux-Ninja*