Another WHM chicken little sees the sky falling. The sky is an AST.

[MoroMurasaki]

Oh look! Startling, I failed to go to bed. Back to the salt mines!

This is just going down the same path 3.3 did at this rate.

Exactly my fear.

Regarding the buff, I would be extremely surprised if Helios get potency buff.

That would be lovely. Everything I've read has specifically used the word 'buff' which is what lead me down that road.

The current issue is that healers have too much free time in raid

I disagree here. I like the way healing works in this game due in part to it's uniqueness. Of course if healers had to spend more time healing the healer best at making hp go up wins but that isn't what I want and it isn't the direction I anticipate SE going. Plus it doesn't fix the problem - in a world of dps optimization giving healers less time to dps just means their rDPS (yet another category that goes SCH>AST>WHM) matters that much more.

WHM keep complaining that they bring nothing yet they have more uploaded parse and are on more first kills than AST.

Well that's the thing isn't it - first kills. People don't often bring AST to prog because they're going for survival rather than optimization. At the end of Stormblood tough when we're all in PF parse running Savage and farming totems for mounts and weapons you can bet unless something changes WHM will be left in the dust again.

First things first. WHM in raiding is all about dat B...cure III and sustained healing. Encroaching on medica II isn't that big of a deal.

I don't think this is the case and it definitely isn't if AST gets more powerful regens on A. Helios.

Even with the measly 40 potency difference between Medica II and A. Helios now I had one person tell me today that "WHM can rely on it's regens to heal in a way that AST can't" which is all the more apparently false when you look at tree breakdown of M2 abd AH side by side.

Cure III alone can not save WHM when most Savage pugs can't even be bothered to stack enough for everyone to get hit by it. Maybe in a static, maybe in Kefka - neither of those things are on my horizon and I'm not alone in that. The rest of the game still exists.

At this point it just looks like they took a WHM, removed it's Cure III and bene. Combined thin air with presence of mind = lightspeed, gave it way better raid dps and voila: AST.

Kinda rough.

It's like you summerized my whole post right there xD Thank you!

While I do agree that AST will obviously gain more pDPS from these changes, I do think the Lightspeed change is being a little overrated. It will make some fights a bit easier, as you just need to smash one button and then run like a headless chicken, but generally in raids I have found that one Swiftcast and Broil II has been enough for me to position myself to safety and then continue casting. I can't think of any raids where you need to be on the move for that long, and where you wouldn't be able to cast in between moving.

WHM is popular because of its' straightforward playstyle (which I believe is a much more important factor than people give it credit for), as well as it being a powerhouse in progression. The AST changes are not messing with any of that.

@Lightspeed changes - I think perhaps you're misunderstanding. The biggest boon to AST from Lightspeed updates as far as raiding goes is the 25% cost reduction being buffed to 50% meaning spells during Lightspeed now cost half mana. The fact that they're instant is nice but they always have been. (Technically not instant, they just have 2.5 secs off their cast times, but for everything but Ascend and Gravity that means instant)

WHM currently has pDPS on AST (which AST counters with the much-preferred rDPS,plus they will gain pDPS from these changes overall) and then healing thoroughput/mp efficency which will both be dramatically helped by the ligjtspeed change and likely by the A. Helios change.

Of course, someone had to make that thread...

Of course, someone had to make this useless reply...