In defense of WHM 4.0

[Levy9]

You're not accounting for Astral Fire III (80% increase). So Fire IV is actually 518 potency.

Lol, you got me on that one. Had a brain fart and forgot about the astral fire buff. I still believe it's the strongest single target healer attack without a significant recast timer.

Earthly Star is an instant 900 potency AoE, 30y range heal (Medica is only 25y) and is 200 damage potency. Literally better.

Earthly Star isn't totally instant for that potency. You have to wait 10 seconds for the 200/900 potency explosion. If you reactivate the ability earlier than that, you'll get a weaker 150/675 potency. On the damage end, the instant Earthly Star is only half of what Assize does, whereas the full 10 second version is still weaker by 100 potency. It's inferior for damage, full-stop. The healing aspect is largely improved over Assize. While the WHM doesn't have a single heal that strong, it has more healing cooldowns available to burn instead. I think the WHM has more baskets, but still a similar number of eggs. (Hopefully, when the scores can be tallied for content. Also, Assize still has an MP refresh as a bonus.)

Both Sects have +15% healing potency making AST's basic cures stronger than WHMs. Additionally, Nocturnal Sect gives a 300% shield bonus to their already potent Aspected Benefit, making it stronger than a SCH's crit Adlo.

This is actually what's most concerning to me, if it makes it into the final game. It all depends on whether the sheer number of healing options and instant cast cooldowns available to the WHM are enough to rival a 15% potency increase. AST would have higher potency heals, but it also has fewer strong instant heal options. We can't really know the answer until we get our hands on the final product.

I'm not saying that WHM won't end up being underpowered. I just don't think it's a guaranteed outcome based on the information we have. I doubt anyone has done all of the math and included all of the variables from Stromblood's actual group content.