Should WHM get a personal damage buff?

[EaMett]

I feel like you need to really read the post that you're quoting there.
Your rebuttal was essentially "but that doesn't help in Savage" which makes me feel like you're skimming my post and not reading what you're responding to.

I think the point was that WHM doesn't get locked out of 4 man content so in that sense balance over that content is a little more trivial. (From what I gathered)

[Risvertasashi]

I feel like you need to really read the post that you're quoting there.

I read the whole post. I just didn't feel I had anything to add to the other parts.

What I don't understand is why you seem so ready to point at SCH and say it's so much stronger. It just isn't.

Oh but it is. If nothing else... The evidence is in the viability of healer comps.

SCH+WHM is viable and used in top groups.
SCH+AST is viable and used in top groups.
AST+WHM isn't anywhere to be found in... this time I went through the top 300. Not seen.

You continue to reiterate that you dont believe healers need any adjustments right now - that's cool, we agree there.

You can actually make a fairly compelling argument that AST needs a buff. I've pretty much just been waiting for someone on these forums to do it, honestly. But if that happens... Again, AST will be replacing WHM, not SCH.

WHM being good in dungeons is not useless. Many, many more players run dungeons every day than will ever participate in Savage. Perhaps your perspective only allows for balancing around one end of that gradient but the game as a whole has to consider the entire playerbase.

It's not so much "perspective" or such but, well, like EaMett said. Dungeons are done through the DF, and the DF doesn't care about meta.

How a job performs in high end content determines who gets frozen out by the community.

[VanilleFang]

But WHM isn't frozen out yet. So what exactly is the problem?

[Ceasaria]

SCH+WHM is viable and used in top groups.
SCH+AST is viable and used in top groups.
AST+WHM isn't anywhere to be found in... this time I went through the top 300. Not seen.

You can actually make a fairly compelling argument that AST needs a buff. I've pretty much just been waiting for someone on these forums to do it, honestly. But if that happens... Again, AST will be replacing WHM, not SCH.
.

That's why SE tried for the launch of Stormblood to enhance the shields of AST and nerf SCH to be able to have the 3 compo with the same weight.
However, this was not a smart move to nerf deeply SCH in every aspect (it's ok for fairy but not for the shields).
And SCH was buff (after the complains) to the point that AST Noct is too less interesting to bring instead of SCH.


Just compare what we have :
WHM / AST = Regen mono & AOE + Assize/Eartly Star + Asile/Collective Unconscious + Tetra/Essential Dignity ---------- Benediction, Cure III, Divine Benison, Thin Air, Presence of Mind | Cards (+ extended time abilities), Lightspeed.
SCH / AST = Shield mono & AOE + Indom/Eartly Star + Sacred Soil/Collective Unconscious + Lustrate/Essential Dignity --------------- 4 skills from Eos (+Selene, + Fey Union), Excog, Deployment Tactics, Dissipation, Chain Stratagem | Cards (+ extended time abilities), Lightspeed.

WHM bring few things compare to AST : Benediction is nice but can't be used a lot (180 sec cd), Cure III is one a the best spell among the healer, Divine Benison is nice now, and Thin Air we know is free MP.
Ok, AST can play without that, and with his cards can do good things (7 cards). It's remains tolerable.

But when you check SCH and compare it to AST : the gap is too high.
Chain Stratagem can be compared to Balance, so ok ; Dissipation to Lightspeed in some way.
But then the problems come :
- Excog is a powerful ability which can prevent death.
- Same with Deployement Tactics which can nullify one complete mecanic or several if damages are low.
- And what left ? the fairy and his Embrace + 4 abilities (Whispering Dawn, Fey Covenant, Fey Illumination, Fey Union)
This is too much, AST Noct can't compete against that.
By playing with the strength of the shield and their mana cost, SE though to have find the good solution, but they did wrong.
Shield is the primary action of SCH and AST Noct. Nerf it ou buff it too much and then it would be a problem.

What I suggest is to buff AST Noct, not the shield but what he has around him, in other words his abilities. We need to have in mind that the objective is to compensate the lack of fairy principly.
It was mentionned in other tread that Time Dilatation and Celestial Opposition are not as impactful in Noct than in Diurnal.
So we could already watch there if we can buff/change them to correspond to the Noct Sect.
However it would not be enough.
I think, Collective Unconscious and maybe Eartly Star (or even Essential Dignity) need to change a bit, or to be buffed (add another effect(s), not just enhanced the existing ones) in Noct Sect.

The goal is not to have AST equal to SCH, but to be able to compete against him (and be behind him a bit as he is with WHM).

I say it now, but either SE buff Noct Sect like that, either they can delete this stance at the 5.0, and bring a new job who can compete against SCH.
And we would have WHM/AST + SCH/???

[EaMett]

Honestly, the reason why AST+WHM isn't to be seen in the top comps is just because SCH rDPS is high enough that it's a significant contributor to placing well. That is all.
We can talk all day about skills of one healer vs another but lets be honest, most content (even savage) only requires about 20% of your healing potential. The top parses require dps not healing. And SCH tops the charts by a pretty significant amount so it's only natural that comps with SCH would place higher than those without.

[MoroMurasaki]

snip.

Please show me where one healer is being excluded from anything right now. Oh, what's that, you can't because it isn't happening? That's what I thought.

Healer balance right now is damn near perfect and you're complaining about what is, as we have seen after you misrepresented it, a very small gap. SCH is not lightyears ahead of WHM or AST if you take rDPS into account and, for what feels like the tenth time, content other than Savage matters.

I feel like I'm repeating myself now, probably because you're continuing the same tired arguments. You are the boy who cried wolf, lamenting about a problem that doesn't exist and when pressed for evidence of your claims you have nothing to show.

What would make you happy? Perfect healer dps balance across the board? Have you even played this game? The devs can't balance the dps of the actual dps roles with that level of specificity, what makes you think (especially with their hands off stance on healer dps) that they would even attempt that with healers?

Virtually no one cares about meta. It's taken literally the worst case scenario for an actual dps class to be frozen out of anything and even now SAMs are still doing content and joining PFs. The only thing stopping your point of view from being a perfect example of making a mountain out of a molehill is that you don't even have a molehill.

If you are a bleeding edge raider who is being consistantly turned away from groups for wanting to play WHM or AST right now please shut me down with some actual proof. Until then all indicators point to wonderful healer balance, don't fix what isn't broken.

[EaMett]

The single target rDPS gap between SCH and WHM isn't really small by any means. Unless the WHM doesn't have to heal and we fall back onto dummy parse territory and even then there is still a gap, in content that allows this play style. WHM redeems itself in many other areas though (burst dps, high sustained hps, aoe dps).

Sadly, those qualities are kind of underwhelming when it comes to the actual content that tends to lock classes out (raiding). Today, WHM is valued as a skill padding class and works well given the current progression stage (SCH + WHM is still a comfort comp).

Do I think this means it's a balancing issue? Nope, it's just the result of WHM's position as the beginner/progression healer and I'm fine with that. I've only recently switched from WHM to SCH but I still love using WHM for dungeons and consider it to be the best healer for such content. But lets call a cat a cat, WHM provides the least raid dps in content that cares about raid dps and has a tendency to lock classes out, I'm calling it.

[VanilleFang]

But with what evidence are you "calling it"? WHM was in a really, really bad place in HW. After 3.4 SCH and AST were like gods compared to WHM. AST was over buffed, and SCH had been a problem since day 1 of HW basically.

[Connor]

I don’t know much about White Mage since it’s not at 70 but in terms of healer balance overall I definitely think Scholar can do too much too easily. There can’t really be a place for White Mage when Scholars are pretty much guaranteed a slot in content where you can choose your party.
Astrologian is fine in that it can do it’s job as a healer, dps, and buff the party(cards). Scholar can pump out ridiculous healing alone, high dps, buff the party, shield to the point of negating certain mechanics, all while the fairy uses the strongest Regen ability in the game (afaik) for no MP cost.
White Mage can...heal...that’s it. It can deal damage, yeah, but that’s nothing special in FFXIV

[Miste]

There can’t really be a place for White Mage when Scholars are pretty much guaranteed a slot in content where you can choose your party.

Can you show any examples of White Mage not having a place in parties and/or SCH having a guaranteed slot in all groups?

I pug in PF on Aether and Primal and I do not see groups locking healer slots very often...only like once in awhile will see a "speed kill" group that only wants SCH/AST, but even then I've seen some speed kill groups taking WHM too. I look at PF listings daily on multiple servers and I rarely ever see groups locking healers to only specific ones.

As someone who plays WHM and AST. When I am on WHM I always see tons of PFs I can join. When I am on AST I often end up seeing groups that already have a WHM in it and I would be forced to Nocturnal (I prefer Diurnal so I often check what the cohealer is, if it has one, before I join a PF).

So yeah sorry as someone who considers herself a WHM and AST main I don't see this "no place for WHM" problem at all. If you could explain and show any kind of proof where you are seeing this it would help?