Isn't it about time for WHM to get an AOE mitigation tool?

[Miste]

SCH has Indom, a 500 pot OGD 15y AOE on a 30 second CD. It almost always heals everyone but the tanks up to 100%. I would consider this trivializing AOE damage for sure.

On a i340 SCH Indom heals for avg 10500 for the cost of an aether stack and 30 second cooldown, while in a full party with vit bonus and or food, i340 players have between 38-42k HP. Heal to 100% with a 10500 heal on a person with 40k HP? Not unless the aoe damage was so pitiful that it barely needed to be healed, but then why would you care about how powerful AoE healing is in faceroll content? It's faceroll for a reason and any of the three healers would trivialize the AoE healing needed in that case.

Indom is not affected by Largesse so it cannot be boosted like Cure III, it has a cooldown so it cannot be spammed like Cure III.

Cure III by itself on an i339 WHM heals for avg 12500 so 2k more than Indom. A Largesse boosted Cure III heals for avg 14500 so 4k more than Indom.

A Cure III cast also gives plenary so can be instantly used afterwards with up to 3 stacks for another instant no MP cost boost to heal for even more and lets not forget Cure III already heals for more than Indom in the first place.

Cure III (550 potency) + 1 Plenary (150 potency) actually gives you 700 potency which is 200 potency above Indom.
Cure III (550 potency) + *2 Plenary (300 potency) gives you 850 potency which massively overtakes Indom by 350 potency.

*used for comparison I realize you would need to cast another AoE to get 2 plenary but there are times where you do end up with 2 stacks just doing what you need to do to heal.

AST has Earthly Star, a massive AOE heal that puts any other heal in the game to shame. It takes some coordination, but with good usage, this thing trivializes any AOE attack by itself.

On a i340 AST Earthly Star heals for around avg 15500 (did more tests for average) and has a 60 second cooldown, while in a full party with vit bonus and or food, i340 players have between 38-42k HP. Heal to 100% with a 15500 heal on a person with 40k HP? Not unless the aoe damage was so pitiful that it barely needed to be healed, but then why would you care about how powerful AoE healing is in faceroll content? It's faceroll for a reason and any of the three healers would trivialize the AoE healing needed in that case.

Earthly Star is not affected by Largesse so it cannot be boosted, it has a cooldown so it cannot be spammed.

Cure III by itself doesn't heal for as much as Earthly Star but it is spammable and also gives plenary for a free boost and no MP cost.

Cure III boosted by Largesse actually only heals for avg 1000 less than Earthly Star even though it is spammable and gives plenary.

Cure III (550 potency) + 1 Plenary (150 potency) actually gives you 700 potency which is only 20 potency off a powered Earthly Star.
Cure III (550 potency) + *2 Plenary (300 potency) gives you 850 potency which massively overtakes Earthly Star's 720 potency.

*used for comparison I realize you would need to cast another AoE to get 2 plenary but there are times where you do end up with 2 stacks just doing what you need to do to heal.

Now in comparison, WHM doesn't actually have anything that's borderline broken like these two. Cure III on a GCD is nice, but it doesn't feel nearly as powerful

You can't be serious. The only thing I can conclude is you don't play AST or SCH or even have them at 70 because I would think you would have known all of this I just said if you did or maybe even fact checked before you posted.

I mean yeah Cure III has a smaller range but add up the potency for Medica I if people are too spread out and a massive AoE hits like Charybdis.

Assize (300 potency) + Medica I (300 potency) + 1 Plenary (150 potency) = 750 potency AoE. Stronger than Indom by 250 potency and stronger than a powered Earthly Star by 30 potency and all you had to do was weave oGCDs.

Keep in mind the radius of Cure III is as large as Asylum. If you were standing in the middle of the Asylum you could hit every person inside the Asylum with Cure III if you used yourself as the target.

[Sebazy]

I don't disagree that an AOE Divine Bension wouldn't be hilariously op, but let's take a minute to look at what other healers have.

/cracks knuckles

SCH has Indom, a 500 pot OGD 15y AOE on a 30 second CD. It almost always heals everyone but the tanks up to 100%. I would consider this trivializing AOE damage for sure.

Indom is roughly 10k actual HP healed at 70. I've got just shy of 40k HP, O3S and O4S have aoes that routinely hit for 20-30k+. I'd be really interested to see your raid experience as your numbers don't stack up.

AST has Earthly Star, a massive AOE heal that puts any other heal in the game to shame. It takes some coordination, but with good usage, this thing trivializes any AOE attack by itself.

Stellar Explosion is ~14k, it's also a minute cooldown. Again, I've got no idea what your raid experience actually is but I can assure you that if nothing else, Earthly Star is indeed an amazing ability, but it certainly doesn't trivialise every AoE attack by itself. Feel free to test this on Faustdeath, I look forward to seeing your results.

For comparison's sake, Cure III is ~11.5k, with Largesse up it's averaging just shy of 14k, a single PI charge nets just over 3k. We stack up absolutely fine when it comes to raw HPS once you start factoring in the details. In short, all 3 abilities have strengths and weaknesses vs each other.

Now in comparison, WHM doesn't actually have anything that's borderline broken like these two. Cure III on a GCD is nice, but it doesn't feel nearly as powerful as it did in 3.0 with other OGCD heals with much larger range beating it.

And yet Medica II and Aspected Benefic absolutely trample over any of the abilities mentioned here, discuss.

I'm not going to say AOE Bension isn't broken, but why is that a bad thing for WHM to have it's one truly powerful tool that trivializes damage?

Because it'll enable us to surpass a rather peachy 50k effective HP as well as providing a group barrier that completely ignores infirmity effects (Which will almost certainly be a thing again with Ultimate Coil). Do you actually appreciate what that'll mean for several mechanics in O4s?

Don't get me wrong, I was waiting for the gotcha with Earthly Star when the press build potencys went out and I was certainly pretty stunned when it actually went live with the numbers that it did. However it still has it's own limitations and WHM is in no way in any kind of a bad shape right now. Thin Air bought so much to the table for us, being able to brute force my way through a completely unmitigated Almagest for a big fat 0 MP is eye opening to say the least. It really saddens me that you simply refuse to see this.

So you’d rather if this situation arises that WHM just have no answer to it and be excluded from the content in favour of AST/SCH?

I honestly don't understand the desire to see WHM get an AoE Galvanise clone. High end content and mechanisms are designed around having two different healers. Ideally one to handle HoTs, one to handle barriers. Whilst ending up with double WHM costs you any AoE bubbles, there are alternatives on Tanks now and double WHM actually stacks pretty well assuming you're not going to get one shot by something. O4S is dooable with double WHM.

In ffxi whm was the shield healer having a stance that turned their cures into this games adloquium.

Either my memory is really bad or this was a very late addition to the game? I played pretty much from the NA release until after WoTG and don't remember seeing that =(

Beaten to it again! #slowbazy =(

[Kabooa]

"DPS privelege is never having to worry about what the other healer is doing."

"Mate, it's the other healers who are going to ride your ass, not the DPS."

[Ghishlain]

Either my memory is really bad or this was a very late addition to the game? I played pretty much from the NA release until after WoTG and don't remember seeing that =(

Yeah, there was a level 40 JA introduced around early WotG for WHM called Afflatus Solace that basically generated a Stoneskin worth X% on the target you single target cure, which was augmented by AF3 gear when Abyssea came out. Afflatus Solace + that AF3 body is basically what propelled WHM back from obscurity to super heal power. lol. With the upgrade AF3 body I think it generated a Stoneskin worth 25% of the total heal (overheal didn't matter) so you get like a 250HP Stoneskin instantly after you Cure V. [edit] Oh, and said JA was also a 2 hour buff (basically a passive) to the WHM kit when it was introduced. It could be dispelled though.

With that being said, that's effectively an ability that's only been around for around half of the game's life cycle then? /think

Beaten to it again! #slowbazy =(

*/comforts Sebazy*

[edit2] Just to add my two cents too - Medica II + Plenary Inguldence is already a 850 Potency heal, it just needs 30s to get the full effect and is essentially the best AoE heal in the entire game at that point. Earthly Star just wows because it's HUGE NUMBERS all at once but Medica II w/ Plenary Indulgence gives you a better heal overall on the same cooldown timer. But that's the power of HoTs for you. Heck, even pre-SB Medica II + Divine Seal was 910 potency worth of healing.

[Semirhage]

My issue with WHM isn't that Earthly Star or Indom are strong. It's that their strength contradicts Square's stated design philosophy for White Mage going into 4.0, which is what I've been raging about from the beginning, because this was inevitable. Pure healing is not a niche. It's opposed to the other stated goal of universal viability. Scholar and Astro are absolutely allowed to have strong heal blasts that get them through content. You can compare abilities like Cure 3, Indom, and Earthly Star, all with strengths, weaknesses, and places where one is nicer than the others. That's great. What's not fine is that the WHM kit is effectively the only one that pays for it. If you compare personal DPS between WHM and AST, one is noticeably stronger than the other. WHM buffs aren't "weaker" than SCH and AST buffs; they're nonexistant. It's not that we buff different things. I can't buff anything.

I don't think having holes in one's kit is by itself a bad thing; it can make for interesting game design. SCH and AST have weak spots in their kits, but they have no holes. There's an answer to everything somewhere in there. In my ideal solution, Square would passively pop some holes in AST and SCH's kit by adding something unique to WHM, not by removing things from the other two.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

You can't be serious. The only thing I can conclude is you don't play AST or SCH or even have them at 70 because I would think you would have known all of this I just said if you did or maybe even fact checked before you posted.
the target.

I'm not implying that any AOE heal in the game will heal you for maximum HP.
What I mean is, in most high damage AOE situations like Spell blade Holy from O3, almost all of Shinryu's attacks etc, an Indom or Earthly Star will heal that damage back up to full or near it.

Of course I'm not implying that there's a heal in this game that will take a 40k HP party member from near 0 to full (other than Benediction). I would never even try to argue that.
Indom and Earthly Star trivializes this specific AOE damage everytime it's used and is much easier to use than gathering everyone up in one location to use Cure III.
That's what I'm getting at is all.

[Miste]

What I mean is, in most high damage AOE situations like Spell blade Holy from O3, almost all of Shinryu's attacks etc, an Indom or Earthly Star will heal that damage back up to full or near it.

So....? WHM can do the same thing as I already outlined and will show you again below.

Indom and Earthly Star trivializes this specific AOE damage everytime it's used and is much easier to use than gathering everyone up in one location to use Cure III.
That's what I'm getting at is all.

I already answered you about your problem with people being too spread out for Cure III.

You should note also that Earthly Star does require proper placement just like Cure III does. It may be a bit larger than Cure III but people still can't be just anywhere they want and still get healed they need to be within the Star's area.

Assize (300 potency) + Medica I (300 potency) + 1 Plenary (150 potency) = 750 potency AoE. Stronger than Indom by 250 potency and stronger than a powered Earthly Star by 30 potency and all you had to do was weave oGCDs.

You can get a higher potency AoE heal than Indom or Earthly Star by just using oGCD heals and one GCD heal.

Not to mention Ghishlain also mentioned how powerful Medica II and Plenary is albeit having to add up the HoT duration.

Medica II + Plenary Inguldence is already a 850 Potency heal, it just needs 30s to get the full effect and is essentially the best AoE heal in the entire game at that point. Earthly Star just wows because it's HUGE NUMBERS all at once but Medica II w/ Plenary Indulgence gives you a better heal overall on the same cooldown timer. But that's the power of HoTs for you. Heck, even pre-SB Medica II + Divine Seal was 910 potency worth of healing.

Both of these options that WHM has heal for more than Earthly Star and Indom when it comes to potency.

[Caduagm]

Indom and Earthly Star trivializes this specific AOE damage everytime it's used and is much easier to use than gathering everyone up in one location to use Cure III.
That's what I'm getting at is all.

You know that Earthly Star is only 2 more yalms range than Cure 3, right?
Also, PI can be delayed to at least 10 seconds after Cure 3 and it has a 30 yalms range.
Indom is 500 potency with a 15 yalms range.
Medica I (15 yalms) + 1 confession PI (30 yalms) combined is 450 potency.
Largesse +Medica I (15 yalms) + 1 confession PI (30 yalms) combined is 510 potency.
I really don't see your point there, bro.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Both of these options that WHM has are better than Earthly Star and Indom.

It's better in numbers, yes, but as an effective heal, I do think Indom and Earthly Star has it beat.
I just notice Indom and Earthly Star so much more than a Medica + Assize/Plenary. It just feels so much more powerful.

But I think we've gotten quite off topic. I was never arguing that a WHM can't match a SCH or AST with their large heals. I originally brought it up to compare how powerful certain tools feel in comparison to WHM, which doesn't exactly have anything that truly feels powerful and unique to itself anymore. And that a AOE Divine Bension, if nerfed, wouldn't be as broken as people seem to think.
Would a mitigation CD that matches the strength of a Succor or Aspected Helios really be such a big deal when Indom and Earthly Star exists?

[Kabooa]

There's a difference between being good at something and being non-functional.

The difference between White mage's aoe healing kit and what Scholar and Astrologian have is one of basic functionality. Remove Indomitable and Earthly Star and they're going to have a significantly more difficult time dealing with AoE damage. Not a little more, but to the point where they'd not be functional. having what you need to deal with a scenario, and having it in ample quantities is the difference.

Shields are just one part of mitigation, and there's a fair amount of it across the non-healers that even in double Wham scenarios, you can survive without shields, and have more than enough healing power to get people back up. The job isn't non-functional for lacking the tool. Get rid of Indomintable and Earthly Star and I doubt you can say the same for Scholar and Ast, let alone double Sch / Double ast.