Healer adjustment in 4.05

[Ghishlain]

How about looking at the numbers when a group doesn't buff up one player by putting the balance on them and only them.

Susano EX Healer DPS
#1 WHM - 2,301.5 DPS
#1 SCH - 2,210.3 DPS (4.0% less than WHM)
#1 AST - 1,965.3 DPS (14.6% less than WHM)

Lakshimi EX Healer DPS
#1 WHM - 2,548.5 DPS
#1 SCH - 2,220.3 DPS (12.9% less than WHM)
#1 AST - 2,045.5 DPS (19.7% less than WHM)

WHM still leads the DPS trial without Balance (though I guess it's rare to see an AST parse without Balance being used, gotta love that RNG). Also expected SSS numbers substantiate how S-E perceives the damage tiers to be and the % ahead. Again, of course that changes based

You are telling someone who stuck with WHM through all of 2.x and 3.x, and will continue to do so during 4.x, despite the blatand weaknesses of the job they are a sheeple and blind meta follower for feeling they didn't do enough to help the job? I literally played AGAINST meta for around the past half year or longer, and you still tell me I'm a 'blind follower of meta'? LOL. If that were the case, I would have switched to AST ages ago because that's the only healer I feel makes sense to play right now. But, you know, I love WHM and want to play it, even though people told me how much slower their runs are with me instead of an AST in 3.3 and 3.4. And just for your information, I don't need anybody to tell me how good or bad something is, I think for my own, and if my own opinion, by chance, aligns with most other people, that still doesn't make me a blind follower of anything. The blind meta junkies are the reason I'm so angry, because they are the ones who exclude people from stuff for playing certain jobs.

Also, you did literally nothing to rebuke my claim of WHM being 200 DPS ahead of SCH, you even gave me the proof I was looking for the past half an hour. Thank you for that I guess. Also, I would argue WHM is MORE reliant on the rest of the party playing perfectly than, say, SCH, because I still can't heal and DPS at the same time outside of Assize, while SCH still has the Fairy (even with the nerfs) and Stratagem is a buff to the party, not reliant on how well people dodge and how much unavoidable AoE goes out. I, however, have to care about those things very much and it greatly lowers my DPS if I have to heal instead of DPS. And why should I not treat it like a 3.4 kit? We got almost nothing new in Stormblood except for MP management, and even lost so much it's not even funny. Benison? A slightly stronger, far less flexible Stoneskin. It CAN be instant of you have a Lily, but will likely not be, forcing you to cast Cure II to get one, giving it a cast time again. This can also screw with you majorly if your co-healer tops off the tank before you can. Even after playing 4.0 WHM for a month now, the Lily system still feels incredibly clunky, and gets ignored by me for the most part because why bother if the benefits are so miniscule and I have to jump through hoops to get them? Also, there are far, FAR too many Lily dumps and too few skills that build them, and half of them is reliant on RNG. Horrible design. And lets not even start on the train wreck that's PI, not even YOU can think that skill is actually good...

Then if I may make a suggestion - stop sounding so angry with all your posts and about how "WHM is dead, the sky is falling!" because that's the perception I'm getting from your posts. You have shown a very biased opinion that WHM is dead in the water and an inflexibility about how the WHM kit actually works. Claiming Divine Benison is bad makes me shake my head. It's infinitely better than Stoneskin because it's an oGCD, even with the Lily requirement. You got something that allows WHM to become more flexible - as long as they're attentive with their resources. Don't save Benison for a tank buster, use it when you get it! You'll get far more mileage out of Benison then you would EVER get out of Stoneskin pre-4.0. Why Stoneskin when using Cure II is generally a more efficient use of the GCD? At the same MP cost and cast time. Yes, there's an argument to use Stoneskin on weakened players pre-4.0 but with the changes to Stormsblood, players maintain their full HP values even when weakened, meaning it's still up to them to ensure they do mechanics properly and they won't get wiped out by Raid buster due to that 10 or 15% hit to their Vitality. Keeping Stoneskin is pointless given the current Weakness changes and how much better Cure II would be compared to Stoneskin under the same GCD.

To answer some of your points more directly - Yes, I am hoping Lily generation gets changed. Not in terms of % proc rate but more in terms of the number of ways to get Lilies would be increased. This would make the WHM kit less narrowly focussed and funner to play overall.

I don't find PI to be terrible, but it definitely needs some QoL love and not a giant overhaul. Again, to mimic other suggestions made, I'd be happy with infinite duration Confession stacks or higher / more ways to generate Confession. There was even one suggestion where turning PI into a DPS ability and I'd actually wouldn't mind seeing that either. Holy damage under a title of "repentance" that generates when you DPS a mob. The way the Live Letter went, it seems they've hit these two issues I had a concern with the WHM kit and I'm reserving further judgement on changes until I see what they're actually changing.

So while I agree with you that 4.0 WHM is better off than its 3.4 counterpart, the above reasoning is TERRIBLE. Even assuming there's no Balance padding in those parses, no healer's hitting that without spending every GCD DPS'ing -- as in, they're TRYING to be #1 for fun and having the other healer solo heal. Such a setup would obviously never be useful in a real static, as at that point you'd sub that healer for a DPS.

The reason why this is important is because setting up Expanded Balance costs oGCDs, while WHM higher personal DPS costs GCDs. A good AST will know how to minimize clipping their GCD with oGCDs, so the raid DPS they provide through Balance can still be given even as healing demands increase, while the same cannot be said for a WHM. You could argue that a WHM has more healing oGCDs, which allows them to spend more GCDs doing damage, but every or nearly every oGCD that AST has that can be compared to a WHM is better than its WHM counterpart overall (from a healing perspective), which mitigates that WHM advantage a fair bit.

In practical settings (see 75th - 80th percentile, for example), a WHM brings about 150-200 personal DPS more than AST, which isn't nearly enough to cover the difference in raid DPS from Expanded Balance. Because of Sleeve Draw, expanded Balance is technically stronger in 4.0 or 4.05 than it was in 3.4 because its uptime will go up.

Honestly, the issue is that many of the advantages that a WHM brings (notably MP efficiency and AoE damage) work really well in dungeons, but don't translate well to 8 man content due to raid design in HW and now Deltascape. If you don't want WHM to give raid utility, to be the SAM of healers, that's fine. But in order for that to work, Stone IV and Aero II should get a potency buff, which should help WHM in 8 man content without making them any more ridiculously good in dungeons.

I agree with the sentiment that there is fault in looking at the absolute best and an average in the 80% is more pragmatic. For those wondering here are the 80 percentile results:

Lakshmi EX
Susano EX

Inb4 "SEE! SCH IS BETTER DPS!!!!"

I will disagree with your sentiment that setting up Expanded Balance is easier for a AST and rather push the argument that both setting up Expanded Balance on AST and providing heavy DPS while on WHM while not shirking your healing duties have similar skill sets - setting up your oGCDs to minimize your GCD clipping.

If I were to compare oGCDs amongest AST and WHM, AST's oGCD provide more raw benefit (ED > Tetra; ES > Assize; CU > Asylum), but the fact WHM has more oGCDs they can use to heal their party means eventually AST has to stop DPSing to spend GCDs to heal. Of course gauging where the break point where AST contribution > WHM contribution and vice versa is not something easy to make.

This is why I keep commenting over and over that it's important for players to pick the healer they feel comfortable playing. Even if a kit may be marginally better than the other, your comfort level can make up that difference or make you play the other kit worse and make you an overall worse healer. I get tired of the players blindly following the meta and the rage that ensues. Yeah, I know I'm not exempt from that rage either *Points to earlier comments in the thread* so I'll apologize for that.

I do agree that if we want to give WHM more damage, the way to go is through things like Stone IV and Aero II.

[Wilbow]

I agree with the sentiment that there is fault in looking at the absolute best and an average in the 80% is more pragmatic. For those wondering here are the 80 percentile results:

Lakshmi EX
Susano EX

Inb4 "SEE! SCH IS BETTER DPS!!!!"

I will disagree with your sentiment that setting up Expanded Balance is easier for a AST and rather push the argument that both setting up Expanded Balance on AST and providing heavy DPS while on WHM while not shirking your healing duties have similar skill sets - setting up your oGCDs to minimize your GCD clipping.

The thing about SCH having the best healer DPS is actually more depressing if you look into it deeper. At 80 percentile, AST and WHM HPS are basically neck and neck at around 4k HPS, while SCH is sitting at 2.5k (I have no idea how it calculates shields into its calcs, so take it with a small grain of salt).

Coupled with the fact that WHM personal DPS on a dummy is higher than that of SCH, the best interpretation is that AST and WHM are doing the heavy lifting of healing because SCH isn't really as able to, leaving SCH to sit there spamming Broil II and thus accumulate a higher DPS in comparison than it otherwise would.

Healer balance is mainly down to the specifics of SCH/WHM changes on Tuesday, really.

As for the second point, when I say "easier", I don't really mean from a skill ceiling perspective. To be more specific, AST can set up Expanded Balance while healing with GCDs, while DPSing vs. healing with WHM is a mutually exclusive choice outside of things like Assize. This is largely in part because oGCDs, even at maximum clipping, only eat up around 1/3 - 1/5 of a GCD, while GCDs eat up 2.5 seconds. In addition, ASTs can barely clip, if at all, if they use a oGCD after the 2 second cast of Benefic or Benefic II, not just after Aspected Benefic.

Say you have a raid encounter where the incoming damage is low and you spend 80% of your GCDs DPSing and 20% of them healing; both healers won't really have much of an issue giving the raid DPS then, right? But if the incoming damage goes up (phase change, mechanic is failed, etc.) and now you're spending only 20% of your GCDs DPSing and 80% of them healing, WHM DPS is hurt way more than AST because AST can probably still find the time to put out Expanded Balance, but a WHM has no way to recover extra Stone IVs except *maybe* (s)he might find a way to spend 30% of their GCDs DPSing instead if they're wise with oGCDs. This is somewhat troubling for WHM in Savage because I can only presume that the healing requirements in the upcoming Savage will be higher than those of the Ex primals.

[Yuyuka3]

PLEASE, Scholar has the shitty "250" Potency fucked up scaling fairy Embrace and we have 300 Potency between Regen, Medica II, and Assylum + Benediction, Tetragrammation, Assize, and sometimes Plenary Indulgence. Even if you don't count Asylum they're about equal and....

I still have to invest a GCD for Regen, and Assylum, Tetra, Bene, and Assize are on CD's, so not constantly available to me. The Fairy is fire and forget in comparison, and considerable less efford to hold up compared to having to manage 7 abilities for healing if going after your list. Micro managing was always more about the other abilities that came bundled with it. I know the Fairy is weaker than before, but I feel that only balances out the advantages it gives SCH over the other healers. Also, using an off-GCD still requires me to switch targets from the boss to the tank, something you don't have to do if we only strictly look at the skills you mentioned. I know you got Lustrate and what not that requires you to switch, so don't even try teaching me on this.

I don't know why you counted Chain Strategem in here. You seem to just have a hate boner for WHM. WHM is the LEAST reliant on party playing perfectly since they have the best mana management for Cure II healbombs/rezzes at the moment and the most oGCDs dedicated to recovering HP if party is dumb enough to get hit by unavoidable mechanics. Thin Air alone puts it miles ahead of the other 2 healers for recovering from party fuck ups.

I counted Stratagem not as a healing ability, but a DPS increase for the group, meaning it aids your DPS contribution even if you currently have to spam heal. You ripped it out of context. I also don't have a 'hate boner' for WHM. WHM is the only healing I actually like in this game. I despice AST if that wasn't obvious yet, and don't have much love for SCH, either. I am, however, quite angry about the def teams blindness when it comes to this class in comparison to the other healers, because I feel there is much wrong there. Also, you apparently didn't read my post at all, because I talked about the balance between DPS and healing. Yes, I know I can recover from party fuck ups quickly. I actually almost solo healed Menagerie once because the SCH (and half of the rest of group...) died of almost every mechanic since it was their first time. Doesn't mean that will have any relevancy in premade statics trying to clear Omega, since they usually perform much better. But I was talking about DPS, not healing, and I feel SCH got it easier here still. I have to basically drop my dps to almost 0, while the other two healers still have their party buffs to contribute indirectly. Don't know what's so hard to understand about this.

Then if I may make a suggestion - stop sounding so angry with all your posts and about how "WHM is dead, the sky is falling!" because that's the perception I'm getting from your posts. You have shown a very biased opinion that WHM is dead in the water and an inflexibility about how the WHM kit actually works. Claiming Divine Benison is bad makes me shake my head. It's infinitely better than Stoneskin because it's an oGCD, even with the Lily requirement. You got something that allows WHM to become more flexible - as long as they're attentive with their resources. Don't save Benison for a tank buster, use it when you get it! You'll get far more mileage out of Benison then you would EVER get out of Stoneskin pre-4.0. Why Stoneskin when using Cure II is generally a more efficient use of the GCD? At the same MP cost and cast time. Yes, there's an argument to use Stoneskin on weakened players pre-4.0 but with the changes to Stormsblood, players maintain their full HP values even when weakened, meaning it's still up to them to ensure they do mechanics properly and they won't get wiped out by Raid buster due to that 10 or 15% hit to their Vitality. Keeping Stoneskin is pointless given the current Weakness changes and how much better Cure II would be compared to Stoneskin under the same GCD.

Thing is that I am quite angry. Angry because I feel they did far too little and it hasn't changed anything about WHMs problems outside of MP. And, frankly, I didn't have many issues with MP in the past, either. I just had to work for it more than now, and now I almost fall asleep with how easy it is to keep my MP. Also, I simply don't buy into the 'it's so much better for being oGCD alone'. Yes, Stoneskin wasn't too great in 3.x. But that was more a result of it getting nerfed to uselessness, not that the skill itself was inherently useless. Also, I could have turned it into a pseudo-instant with Swiftcast if I wanted, eliminating the cast time; I was dead last in the rez order anyways because my MP pool didn't support it, so no use not using Swift for anything. Like this, it went out for AoE healing. Also, as said before, if you want to use Benison and doesn't have a Lily, you have to cast Cure II, meaning you are adding a cast time after all. I feel they could have just buffed Stoneskin in a number of ways and it would have been useful again. No need to take it away and replace it with a level 66 ability. That just feels extremely lazy, as if they plain didn't want to think about what else to give WHM in that skill slot. Just like they didn't want to think about how to make WHM keep as many abilities as everyone else, instead of just blatantly letting them have fewer. So guess most of my complaints are opportunity cost related?

To answer some of your points more directly - Yes, I am hoping Lily generation gets changed. Not in terms of % proc rate but more in terms of the number of ways to get Lilies would be increased. This would make the WHM kit less narrowly focussed and funner to play overall.

I would honestly already be satisfied by now if they let Benison only take the one Lily it needs instead of removing them all, or give it additional effects for more Lilies used, since I doubt they will do more with Lilies than what they currently are, sadly. But yes, they definitely have to do something about how we generate Lilies, too; only two spells proccing them, that aren't even used that often if played right, and one of them only with an RNG chance, just isn't enough. I feel I could take Cure off my bar and not miss much some times...


[QUOTE]I don't find PI to be terrible, but it definitely needs some QoL love and not a giant overhaul. Again, to mimic other suggestions made, I'd be happy with infinite duration Confession stacks or higher / more ways to generate Confession. There was even one suggestion where turning PI into a DPS ability and I'd actually wouldn't mind seeing that either. Holy damage under a title of "repentance" that generates when you DPS a mob. The way the Live Letter went, it seems they've hit these two issues I had a concern with the WHM kit and I'm reserving further judgement on changes until I see what they're actually changing.

I barely ever see even one Confession, and only saw 3 of them once so far, on a truly horrible tank that needed Cure II spamming like no tomorrow to keep alive, LOS'd me constantly, etc. It definitely needs better ways and infinite stacks (until used). I guess I just expected too much for our 70 skill, after how good Tetra was as a 60, and the disappointment of WHM being the only healer without group utility is just far too strong to get over for me.

Even if a kit may be marginally better than the other, your comfort level can make up that difference or make you play the other kit worse and make you an overall worse healer. I get tired of the players blindly following the meta and the rage that ensues. Yeah, I know I'm not exempt from that rage either *Points to earlier comments in the thread* so I'll apologize for that.

I do agree that if we want to give WHM more damage, the way to go is through things like Stone IV and Aero II.

Trouble is that it doesn't feel like marginally better, but a lot better on side of the AST, especially with DPS contribution...
Also, I love the theory of "if you are a good healer, you are much more desirable than a bad one on a better class!". It is, of course, true. But sadly... people don't know if you are that better healer, and if you are excluded from joining a party from the get-go due to your class, you can't proof them you are. And sadly, that happens a lot. That's the core of the problem, really. You are 100% right, but if I can't proof it to people because they won't let me, there is no chance in hell that knowing this helps me any.