Should WHM get a personal damage buff?

[VanilleFang]

snip

1) Crit Adlo is pure RNG. Cure III is not.

2) In what world does a Noct Aspected Helios have the same potency as Cure III?

Aspect. Helios (Noct): 150 potency + Shield equal to 150% of the amount healed (So let's say 375 potency?)

Cure III: 550 potency

[Miste]

Earthly Star, Lightspeed Noct Helix x2, and Collective Unconscious can likewise put just as much healing/shielding burst as a Cure III spam + Asylum + Assize over the same amount of time.

You can't compare jobs like this. You are looking at only small bits and pieces and not the whole picture of why each healer has these tools.

Even if we just look at AoE healing specifically you can see a pattern between DiAST and WHM and why they each have these spells and abilities and when one has an advantage usually the other has a different advantage somewhere else either with ease of use, frequency of availability, or something the other healer doesn't have in their kit at all. It is all a balance of upsides and downsides.


Earthly Star

Yes Earthly Star is good, but it needs proper timing which requires more skill and knowledge of the fight. If you don't get the buffed Giant Dominance then Earthly Star only heals for 540 potency which is actually less than Cure III and on a 60s cooldown so it isn't usable whenever you feel like it.

Cure III is usable whenever you want and can be used reactionary even and gives the full potency without having to time it up to 10s ahead of the mechanic.

AST has no GCD heal to compare with Cure III so Earthly Star is their powerful AoE equivalent. Take Earthly Star away and AST wouldn't be able to heal God Kefka either that or it would be on a much higher level of healing difficulty and/or the cohealer will be the one to suffer to make up for ASTs inability to assist with burst AoE heal.


Lightspeed

Yes Lightspeed is good, but it has a long cooldown and not usable all the time it also has a detriment to your DPS spells which makes it a pain in the butt to use since you can't weave DPS while it is active (you can but it ends up -25% potency). Lightspeed is ASTs movement needed assistant so that they can heal during periods of movement.

Cure III can be used whenever you want and while it isn't instant cast WHM has other tools to help with healing when movement is needed. AST doesn't have Assize or Plenary which can both be used during times of movement and have much shorter cooldowns.


Collective Unconscious

Yes Collective is good, but it has a cooldown and not usable all the time and also loses you GCDs due to server tick issues on proc'ing the regen. Proc'ing the 10% mitigation is a side bonus if the server tick god happens to smile on you, but ASTs who care about optimizing will not wait and waste GCDs on channeling longer than just proc'ing the regen.

Asylum is placeable and doesn't need to be channeled constantly to get the healing and the WHM is free to keep using other heals or spells all while getting Asylums full benefit. No AST will continuously channel Collective, it is a huge DPS loss and GCD loss to be locked like that. Collective does have the mitigation that Asylum doesn't, but the fact that Collective needs to be channeled by the AST to keep the mitigation on is the detriment and also DiAST doesn't have anything equivalent to Divine Benison.

I mean yeah AST can add 10% mitigation to an AoE every 90s with a regen too, but it loses us GCDs (up to 3 depending on the timing of the AoE and the server tick bs), but you know that Kefka savage Tank Buster almost one shotting your Tank? WHM is better for tank buster mitigation than DiAST since you'll have DB up for every one and it is oGCD so can be weaved while still healing or DPSing losing no GCDs.


Overall

Yes AST has a good healing kit, but so does WHM, and there is a reason why these spells and abilities exist. All healers seem to follow a trend where they have at least one method of Burst AoE healing, at least one method of burst single target healing, and at least one method to heal while moving either for quick healing or for mechanics that require movement.

The healer balance is very good right now.

Among optimization tasked to spend the fewest GCDs possible on heals, the sustained HPS of WHM means less and less. Much the same can be said of Thin Air (over)heal potential.

So...AST is the opposite....WHM seems to be often taken over AST for progression since it is safer.

Doesn't both AST and WHM need a buff by your logic then? AST needs a buff to be more viable for progression and WHM needs a buff to be more viable for end of tier parse and/or speedkills?

(I don't actually agree with any of this, simply pointing out the flaw in this idea that WHM is apparently getting somehow shafted in savage/ultimate because other healers can heal decently too and that WHM luster somehow fades just because progression is waning)

And this is why I don't agree with any of this WHM is being shafted from savage stuff:

Last 2 weeks the amount of parses for each healer job.
Scholar: 40,204
White Mage: 38,506
Astrologian: 21,362

Source: https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/21#class=Healers

WHM having trouble? The statistics just don't back that up.

And speaking of sustained, Noct Aspected Helix IS the exact same potency as Cure III, but has the added advantage of an eHP bonus and a whole lot more range...

Nope. Noct Asp. Helios is not the same potency as Cure III. How did you come to this conclusion? Mathematically it is wrong.

Noct Asp. Helios Potency: 150
Noct Sect bonus 15%
150% shield

150 + 150(0.15) = 172.5 potency
172.5 + 172.5(1.5) = 431.25 potency

Cure III = 550 potency

As a in-game test of AST and WHM both i360 (same item level weapon as well) here are my results:

Noct Asp. Helios heal including shield avg 10700 HP
Cure III avg 13700 HP.

It is pointless to compare WHM to Noct AST though. They are healing partners. They don't compete with each other so I don't understand why you would be using this as an argument.

[basketofseals]

In terms of burst, a crit Deployment more than gives WHM a run for its money, especially now that Sacred Seal is gone. On a Warrior with Convalescence, Minne, and either a Mantra or Fey Illumination, that's a 1344+ potency AoE shield. Earthly Star, Lightspeed Noct Helix x2, and Collective Unconscious can likewise put just as much healing/shielding burst as a Cure III spam + Asylum + Assize over the same amount of time.

Crit adlo deployment is not a tool. It is a bonus that SCH sometimes gets to enjoy.

Creating mega shields with multiplicative buffs is fun, but ultimately useless. You're blowing multiple cooldowns in order to nullify a mechanic you were going to survive anyway with a single cooldown. Then that shield goes away in 30 seconds and you're stuck with using your GCDs to cover the next buster/AoE

[Shurrikhan]

Crit adlo deployment is not a tool. It is a bonus that SCH sometimes gets to enjoy.

Creating mega shields with multiplicative buffs is fun, but ultimately useless. You're blowing multiple cooldowns in order to nullify a mechanic you were going to survive anyway with a single cooldown. Then that shield goes away in 30 seconds and you're stuck with using your GCDs to cover the next buster/AoE

Context:

It's an identity, but a shaky one at best.
If, at any point, one of the healers does more damage or more healing, WHMs identity is instantly called into question. This won't happen to the other healers as they have very unique identities for themselves.

Obviously the solution would simply be to never make a healer stronger than WHM healing/DPS, but we all know SE isn't exactly perfect at balancing.

I agreed with WHM identity being shaky if dependent solely on that. That it could never be beaten in healing potency (Over a burst interval? Over time? Relative/buff-modified potency or raw?) seemed vague to me, so I presented another window by which that identity wouldn't be as solid as it might sound.

My point in doing so certainly wasn't that SCH offers more reliable healing, only that (1) there certainly are times where the other jobs can technically outheal a WHM in a pivotal period of time, and that (2) an advantage in GCD HPS means little if one can already get by on ability-based healing on any two of the healers, which is the only point at which WHM use starts to become discouraged -- though even this seems to me a bit of an overstatement, as I've yet to see WHM locked out of any composition except because another WHM was already in the party, only many a healer choosing to take AST or SCH instead if DPS is borderline.

:: I forgot that Noct Helix has a reduced initial potency value. My apologies.

[Shurrikhan]

You can't compare jobs like this. You are looking at only small bits and pieces and not the whole picture of why each healer has these tools.

My point was never to compare job strengths, only to offer a counterpoint to a counterpoint. See above. I simply presented a period in which a WHM is not necessarily the max HPS healer a pivotal period. If WHM identity relies solely on being the king of HPS, that identity is shaky. It can have the highest raw potency casts, sure, but against Nocturnal, its effective potency isn't even at a significant advantage. So, what exactly is WHM, then? I'd argue it has an identity -- one about as satisfying as the other two, even -- but it's not just being the king of healing potential, as at best that applies to average HPS and solely prior to speedruns and DPS-compensation (which is the only point at which any of this whole WHM falls from blatant overstatement to somewhat overstated).

I get, of course, that it makes no sense to compare those as compositional competitors, as only Diurnal will stand at conflict with it in compositional choice, but it does at least stand on the toes of that identity, if one chooses to define WHM in that way.

I meant only to question whether HPS was sufficient for an identity, especially if it lead isn't uniquely held by WHM in all ways it may be defined.

...Just got too used to the WoW forums where the entire back-and-forth prior is shown to anyone who wishes to reply to a part thereafter, I guess.

So...AST is the opposite....WHM seems to be often taken over AST for progression since it is safer.

Doesn't both AST and WHM need a buff by your logic then? AST needs a buff to be more viable for progression and WHM needs a buff to be more viable for end of tier parse and/or speedkills?

Yes, definitely. I don't think there's any shaft WHM is taking in speedruns that AST didn't take at the beginnings of progression already. Personally I think AST could use a bit more raw healing resources in its ability kit (preferably a small buff to CO, imo) and/or more worthwhile short-term progression-applicable benefits to some of its currently speedrun-optimal resources, such as Cards. These don't have to, and indeed shouldn't, be of noticeable impact by the time one reaches speedruns, but they should give it a more comparable leg up alongside SCH and WHM in the first weeks of progression.

Consider, for instance:
- Arrow is generally inferior to Balance, due to it having no impact on DoT or oGCD damage. However, Arrow affects healing, meaning it at least has some small contribution to short-term benchmarks outside of just speedy DPS checks, such as survival.
- What if Balance likewise had such an impact on healing as well, or if Bole was useful to more than just the MT, or if cards were a bit more even in their simultaneous (survival + dps, long + short) value, even if not all were as well geared towards speed-running or towards survival?
- Extending a Noct shield via CO or TD has no practical value unless it was mistakenly placed before a massive raid-damage-less period in the first place. What if such effects refreshed a degraded shield back towards its maximum absorption in addition to that duration extension?
- Do we really need a separate Ewer and Spire effect for TP and MP, separately? How much more distinction and yet consistency of value could we see from cards with a slight trimming and condensing of the deck?

[NobleWinter]

Reducing the total number of cards on Ast from 6 to 5 would be an incredible buff to their reliability. It also throws a wrench in how each Royal Road effect has a 1 in 3 chance of appearing. I heartily agree that the Ewer should restore MP and TP but Spire should be reworked to buff Determination since every class would benefit. You could spread the Ewer and get no complaints mostly if everyone saw some benefit and the new Spire would be cool too.

[EaMett]

The WHM identity issue lies in the fact that it conflicts directly with the game design. They give the WHM the biggest HPS weiner and then design encounters that can be done with the lowest HPS healer around. It's like bringing a bulldozer to destroy a sand castle.
The result is that the only time a WHM gets to express it's identity is when people screw up (progression).

This doesn't mean that WHM isn't balanced or that it needs some sort of buff. It just means SE views WHM as a beginner healer with an easy to use skill set and a lot of HPS padding to help beginners and not so skilled healers tackle all the content.
It just turns out that this sucks for the WHMs that don't identify with that demographic. (not to mention WHM's absence from the meta)

[Seraphor]

Reducing the total number of cards on Ast from 6 to 5 would be an incredible buff to their reliability. It also throws a wrench in how each Royal Road effect has a 1 in 3 chance of appearing. I heartily agree that the Ewer should restore MP and TP but Spire should be reworked to buff Determination since every class would benefit. You could spread the Ewer and get no complaints mostly if everyone saw some benefit and the new Spire would be cool too.

I find the Spire to be incredibly useful for its Royal Road effect.
All the other cards have a viable us eon their own, but almost all of them benefit from a 100% net gain with Expanded Royal Road. (Balance, Arrow and Spear certainly, Bole sometimes, Ewer... possibly? If you have multiple casters/healers/DRK struggling with MP)
The Ewer is sometimes more useful to use in and of itself but the Spire is universally used to Expand. That makes expanding a fairly reliable strategy.
If it was actually made into a useful card in its own right, it'd make that choice much more difficult.

[Seraphor]

The WHM identity issue lies in the fact that it conflicts directly with the game design. They give the WHM the biggest HPS weiner and then design encounters that can be done with the lowest HPS healer around. It's like bringing a bulldozer to destroy a sand castle.
The result is that the only time a WHM gets to express it's identity is when people screw up (progression).

This doesn't mean that WHM isn't balanced or that it needs some sort of buff. It just means SE views WHM as a beginner healer with an easy to use skill set and a lot of HPS padding to help beginners and not so skilled healers tackle all the content.
It just turns out that this sucks for the WHMs that don't identify with that demographic. (not to mention WHM's absence from the meta)

This would be solved with my proposed change/reintroduction of Protect and Shell as WHM exclusives.

Protect
Becomes a WHM exclusive spell again.
Instant cast AoE 10% Physical Damage reduction on a 5m duration and 10s cooldown. Overrides Shell.

Shell
Becomes a WHM exclusive spell again.
Instant cast AoE 10% Magical Damage reduction on a 5m duration and 10s cooldown. Overrides Protect.

This gives WHM an oGCD to weave between heals, and a unique ‘damage type dancing’ mechanic, whereby you can anticipate the damage type you’ll most likely need to block and use the mitigation spell suitable for it. Could replace Fluid Aura and Repose.
How to balance the lack of Protect as a role skill? Increase SCH and AST’s basic mitigation spells by 5-10% depending on how accessible they are.
Balanced against SCH/AST mitigation? Well it’s less potent (only 10%) and only protects against one type of damage at a time. I don’t see how it’s encroaching on either of their territories. Both SCH and AST can already do both HoT and Mitigation, and AST isn’t solely limited to its Sects, it has Bole and Collective Unconscious (which does both). Besides, Nocturnal is almost always for effective than Diurnal. I only ever use Diurnal when I’m paired with a SCH in a dungeon/raid.

[VanilleFang]

Protect
Becomes a WHM exclusive spell again.
Instant cast AoE 10% Physical Damage reduction on a 5m duration and 10s cooldown. Overrides Shell.

Shell
Becomes a WHM exclusive spell again.
Instant cast AoE 10% Magical Damage reduction on a 5m duration and 10s cooldown. Overrides Protect.

5 minute duration and 10 second CD? So basically free mitigation forever?