Healer adjustment in 4.05

[HyperSMB]

I think SE missed it, and there is no way they were reading what so many players talked about. They didn't even look at those spells. Weird isn't it? Dissipation anyone?

SE missed it so hard it hurts. So little of what I would have considered SCH consensus was even touched. I mean, these are buffs, but they missed the core of SCH power and what people like about the class from everything I read.

[Elamys]

That's not really true either as early coil people ran double monk.

I think the debuff to building LB with double classes was added in Heavensward.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Putting my comment down now - even if World First Omega (Savage) healing pair came out to be WHM/AST, many people will then counter it with "it's because the lower ilvls meant they needed more healing" and then the moaning and groaning will continue from there about how useless WHM is.

I really don't care who clears first. If world first really set thee store for what's ideal and what's not, we would have seen Monk running all over the place in Midas.

And it's actually true that the higher your Ilv, the less you need a AST/WHM comp. I mean, why would you need that safety net in a farm, or clearing when you're 20ilvs beyond the content?

[Rivxkobe]

However, I have a dumb question. Is SCH really getting a buff? And I mean this.

Considering we don't know anything about half of the changes to SCH, and you completely ignored Miasma II? Hmm.

[Ghishlain]

I really don't care who clears first. If world first really set thee store for what's ideal and what's not, we would have seen Monk running all over the place in Midas.

And it's actually true that the higher your Ilv, the less you need a AST/WHM comp. I mean, why would you need that safety net in a farm, or clearing when you're 20ilvs beyond the content?

The primary argument that I see being slugged around by the WHM crowd is WHM is absolutely useless for everything because AST >>>>>>>>>>>>> WHM and the extra longevity and throughput WHM provides is pointless.

World First with WHM would prove that point otherwise. Even if it's not meta, there is a time and place to run WHM.

Asking WHM to be perfect in every circumstance is basically asking for WHM to get the same treatment as AST by the time 4.4 rolls around. I'm pretty certain no one wants that.

[edit] And to answer your second part - if we're about a point in a life cycle where everyone is 20 ilvls beyond the content, then there is no reason to not bring any healer a player would prefer. Also, if your group is already used to say farming it WHM/???, why take WHM away and possibly change your strategy and risk wipes after the fact. That seems pretty counter intuitive to me.

[Justin_Uriel]

Considering we don't know anything about half of the changes to SCH, and you completely ignored Miasma II? Hmm.

You are correct. And I love how you summed up the post with that.

We know nothing about half of the changes. However, I didn't ignore Miasma II sorry. I completely forgot about it. So that is it! The whole post summed up with that. Miasma II for the WIN! Healer fixed with DPS move. Hmmm.
(I still don't think they read the comments that so many players were leaving them. But, Miasma II! Am I right? LoL)

[Starflake]

I'm fairy certain we'll have some more tweaks left and right that weren't mentioned. Just see what the letter says tomorrow. All else is useless speculation at this point and assumptions.

[Katryn]

This is all much ado about nothing for several reasons:

1) Classes that are more difficult to play should be more desirable in long term high end content than classes that are easy. I am a WHM main and it in no way surprises or offends me that WHM is not ideally suited for long term savage viability.

2) SE destroyed any hope of healer or tank balance in their game the moment they brought third options in. I am not targeting this at AST or DRK specifically, either--I'm aiming it at the community and meta idealist mentality's effect on the playerbase. The moment there is an optimal or 'winning' combination, it only stands to reason that there must always be a losing or lesser counterpart.

3) Both of the above, and much of what we are discussing here, overlooks the practicality that we must also consider the individual players comfort level and availability of jobs within our fcs / statics / etc. All of our numbers and theories are based on optimal player performance when in truth that is something that can vary widely. If a shitty AST can outperform a skilled WHM (or vice versa) then there's a much larger problem.

4) And lastly, all of the optimal composition theory also assumes that we are more interested in class selection than with playing with friends or fc mates. I'm sure that will potentially be an issue in PF if the gap is too wide--i.e. the infamous AST locks in early HW--but for more established groups that care about people and not just paperwork, it doesn't seem like it should be quite so worth getting worked up about.

Personally, I am quite happy with how my WHM is doing and I am interested to see what changes tomorrow will bring. In fairness, I am currently not looking at doing savage and my opinions come from a far more social gaming background than most people here are. But this is an interesting discussion and having read everyone's thoughts, I figured I would share my own.

[Rivxkobe]

You are correct. And I love how you summed up the post with that.

We know nothing about half of the changes. However, I didn't ignore Miasma II sorry. I completely forgot about it. So that is it! The whole post summed up with that. Miasma II for the WIN! Healer fixed with DPS move. Hmmm.
(I still don't think they read the comments that so many players were leaving them. But, Miasma II! Am I right? LoL)

I never said they would be saved by a DPS move. I just mentioned that you asked if they were actually getting buffed using manipulative words, ignoring(forgetting doesn;t fly here because you made a post acting as if you knew what you were talking about), and acting as if not knowing = not a buff.

You questioned if SCH was actually being buffed because... reasons(?) and now that the changes are out? I was right to question your approach. SCH is OP now. But yeah, no, I was totally wrong to sum up your post the way I did.


You naysayers are getting on my nerves.

[Wilbow]

This is all much ado about nothing for several reasons:

1) Classes that are more difficult to play should be more desirable in long term high end content than classes that are easy. I am a WHM main and it in no way surprises or offends me that WHM is not ideally suited for long term savage viability.

Please don't take this personally, but this is a horrible, HORRIBLE design choice and completely against the philosophy that SE preaches, as evidenced by their response about MCH being too hard in the last live letter. They said something to the effect of "[we don't plan to make its DPS higher than Bard and/or nerfing its difficulty because] when you choose to play a job, you choose to immerse yourself in the experience that job offers".

If only the "most difficult" jobs were viable at Savage, we'd literally see only ONE or maybe TWO viable Savage comps because no sane person would take the "easier" jobs. Does this sound good to anybody?

Furthermore, difficulty (to a certain extent) is subjective. I've seen people have MASSIVE discrepancies as to which jobs in this game are the hardest because they demand different skills. If you want to see this concept pushed to the extreme, go look at any popular MOBA and try to get players to come to a consensus on which characters are the hardest to play. And when it comes to WHM, the difficulty at higher levels becomes maximizing damage GCDs by managing oGCDs, something that is far more important to WHM than it is to AST.

The only time you could justify tuning the output (on a dummy) of one job to be slightly higher than its counterparts is if it has mechanics that make it LITERALLY or NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to perform optimally in a real world fight with any difficulty. For example, BLM is generally punished more by mechanics, and SMN and DRG have restrictive burst windows which almost never sync well with transitions. Skilled players are able to MINIMIZE, but very rarely ELIMINATE, these disadvantages.