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

[Ghishlain]

I do want to tack onto Miste's most recent comment to the thread and add that while the participation numbers on logs should be taken with grain of salt due to the voluntary nature of logs, I imagine S-E's official back end tools will show a similar percentage breakdown with some small deviations (I'd guess +/- 5%). What these numbers tell me that it certainly isn't undesirable though the topic of "kit strengths" is certainly up for debate. Even if WHM isn't meta for the speed kill community, it is certainly played and played immensely.

Apparently, based on what I can see, logs maintains historical data for their logs that are relevant for the tier (IE, only using 3.4 and 3.5 clear data for Alexander: The Creator (Savage) ). You can find the participation data set here - it shows AST being the most played with SCH not too far behind and WHM lagging behind significantly.

TLDR of stats:
Alexander: The Creator recorded 37,776 healer logs with the following breakdown: SCH = 37% | AST = 41% | WHM = 21%
Sigmascape (Savage) recorded 107,798 healer logs with the following breakdown: SCH = 39% | AST = 23% | WHM = 37%

I'd also like to point out that despite how meta the SCH/AST healer comp is, the participation data doesn't reflect these meta compositions. This is in contrast with the tank meta ( WAR/PLD - participation data here ) and DPS meta ( DRG / NIN / BRD / [Fight & Group Dependent Wild Card Slot] - participation data here ). I'd like to also add a small note that despite MCH having the lowest participation numbers, they are represented in several top 10 speed kill groups currently, while BLM and SAM have no representation.

My point in all this wall of text? Even if AST/SCH brings the most raid utility and DPS to the table out of all three healers - a fair number of groups still run WHM for the safety factor (higher HPS throughput and eMP Pool). We're less than two weeks away from patch 4.3 and despite some comments about how "progression is dead" at this time frame we still see WHM, argued as the primary progression healer, being used heavily. This leads me to believe a few things including there are still many groups freshly progressing into the raid or those that have cleared the raid tier will still continue to run the comfort pick of WHM because either they're more comfortable with the WHM kit or don't want to change things up so they can keep clearing the content safely and smoothly. I imagine if many of the current raiders felt WHM was unfeasible, we wouldn't see the current participation numbers that we do at this juncture.

[Rivxkobe]

Of the healers I use AST. I am Leveling SCH slowly as well, and I really don't like WHM.

However, I share your concerns. Sure its nice to see buffs for the healer I use but I prefer balance of the healers > the healer I use being stronger.

We'll see how this goes but I worry this might just set AST above WHM again since they are already pretty close, the only thing weak about AST is Noct sect. Sure clipping is annoying but AST is still used, and it is still comparable to WHM. Buffing it is just going to imbalance things again, especially if they buff SCH and don't give WHM a slight buff to adjust to these changes to AST.

[Jxnibbles]

Maybe 4.4 Lilies or traits will be changed..

Wait my bad we will see even more Sch/Wars qols/buffs. Can't wait.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I don't know why people do this all the time with WHM. It is a great job and posting things like this downplaying how strong it is is just silly.

It's a good healer, and it is strong yes. But it really just has nothing special going for it in comparison. That's why every time AST or SCH gets a little buff, WHMs start panicking. They're already standing on razor thin ice, their dps is already being matched by SCH. Their ease of healing and straightforward playstyle is really nice, but how far can that alone get them?

Im not saying they're bad or weak, just that they really don't have much going for them, so SE should be very careful before buffing up the other two healers and creating another 3.4 situation that they won't deal with till 5.0.

[Tridus]

I really do wonder what the heck they're doing with that trait. So far they fixed SCHs trait almost immediately, and ASTs hyper Lightspeed is going to be a lot more useful now that Lightspeed is extremely powerful.

Meanwhile WHM gets left with a laughable RNG on top of RNG based CD reduction that is, once again, tied to healing spells we barely use.

It's so sad to be a WHM main these days, because it has become very apparent that SE only cares about SCH and AST, and WHM is allowed to remain barely relevant but still technically "viable". It's pretty obvious that SE sees WHM as a casual job, not a raiding job, and so they allow them to fall behind the other two without caring.

They're getting away with it because despite all that, WHM works and lots of people (like me) find it fun to play. Its annoying that lilies are basically a failed system right now, but it's not nearly as detrimental as DRK's problems are to the viability of the job. Honestly I think after the live letter comments about how it'd take six months to fix DRK so they're not going to (WTF is up with their development process that it'd take that long, seriously!?), DRK players should be at the torches and pitchforks stage rather than WHM players.

Besides, clearly they don't have time to figure out how to make lilies useful while they're busy making phone apps with extra subs. All about priorities.

[EaMett]

They're already standing on razor thin ice, their dps is already being matched by SCH.

Actually their raid dps contribution is the lowest of all three healers. You simply don't take a whm for dps, period. Their strengths lay elsewhere.

[MoroMurasaki]

Actually their raid dps contribution is the lowest of all three healers. You simply don't take a whm for dps, period. Their strengths lay elsewhere.

Exactly. And in a game that leads everyone down the same path of 'dps above all else' where does that leave WHM?

[Trunks]

My point in all this wall of text? Even if AST/SCH brings the most raid utility and DPS to the table out of all three healers - a fair number of groups still run WHM for the safety factor

That's a big assumption. Actually my garbo group of casual scrubs runs a WHM because I hate Astrologian and I can do just enough personal DPS to justify my existence (except when we get final bosses that spam near-one-shot mechanics because SE refuses to stop handing out shields and mitigation cooldowns like it's a bloody Oprah giveaway). WHM isn't optimal, but it's viable. I would bet that for most groups, running a WHM has nothing to do with the heal throughput (in fact that heal throughput is as much a curse as a blessing because when I put the group on my back and try to carry them to victory, I get aggro and die, because SE brilliantly designed a game where tanks are disincentivized from doing their one job); more likely it comes down to the personal preference of the player, because it's easier to compensate for any small deficiency in WHM than it is to find an entirely new healer. When those deficiencies stop being small and the raids are balanced around the assumption of comps that aren't awful, what do you think happens?

That's all out the window, and now I'm either gimping my group or playing something I hate.

Protip: don't obliterate your most popular healer job and one of the most iconic jobs in your franchise on a whim. They're slapping a bandaid onto AST. Except AST isn't bleeding. It has broken bones, and SE's the one that broke them with their SCH Sect / WHM Sect design.

[Miste]

Actually their raid dps contribution is the lowest of all three healers. You simply don't take a whm for dps, period. Their strengths lay elsewhere.

While it may SEEM like that, people are ignoring the fact that AST cards are RNG, they rely on the party skill level as well, and basically only speedrun groups who do a fight over and over and over to wait till RNG smiles on them to get like majority of Balance cards for the entire run actually end up contributing a large amount of rDPS.

We're talking like 5-8 AoE Balances in a 7 minute fight. That is around 35-50% uptime. Yes it contributes a lot, but they might have to run the fight 20+ times to get that lucky. That is how speed running works; you get those top speeds, but you sacrifice a lot of time to do it with ASTs unreliable RNG. They also have the most skilled players who can actually make the most out of AST cards, while average prog/clear/farm groups don't always have the most skilled players.

Normal players who simply run savage to prog and clear without caring about speed runs are the majority of raiders, and if you delve into the logs using the rDPS calculator you can find some interesting things.

A WHM can match an ASTs rDPS contribution with just their pDPS.

For example I took my recent GK kill: 3 AoE Blances and 4 AoE Spears...kinda middle ground RNG for a fight with players simply trying to clear and not speed running. All in all I could have AoE Balance up to 9 times in that fight IF I got lucky, but RNG would have to really smile on you to do that. Well top speed runners get almost that with around 5-8 AoE Balances (shorter fights so not as many draws). The trade off? They likely killed GK at least 10-20+ times to get that lucky.

I used the rDPS calculator on my run where I did 51% blue non ranked pDPS. This doesn't include cards my pDPS alone was 1,271.3, but the rDPS calculator said I contributed 1559.0 total. 243.9 rDPS from Balance and 83.6 rDPS from Spear.

I looked through the rankings and found a WHM and checked their non ranked parse who did exactly 1559.0 pDPS and their contribution was also 50% blue.

So a WHM had to do blue to match a blue AST. That seems fair. Yes RNG may move me up a bit higher IF I got lucky and the WHM would have to do a bit more, but that is the difference between AST And WHM. WHM is 100% consistent as long as the player behind it is. AST is RNG so it doesn't matter the skill of the player behind it if you simply get unlucky so you can't always rely on the cards.

It's a good healer, and it is strong yes. But it really just has nothing special going for it in comparison. That's why every time AST or SCH gets a little buff, WHMs start panicking. They're already standing on razor thin ice, their dps is already being matched by SCH. Their ease of healing and straightforward playstyle is really nice, but how far can that alone get them?

Im not saying they're bad or weak, just that they really don't have much going for them, so SE should be very careful before buffing up the other two healers and creating another 3.4 situation that they won't deal with till 5.0.

The amount of participation over AST kinda denies this idea that they have nothing special going for them. They have fifteen thousand more parses as of right now over AST and only 2000 less than SCH.

I agree SCH pDPS should not be matching WHMs pDPS, but for some reason WHMs always like to target AST instead of the real issue which is SCH /shrug.

They already nerfed Balance at SB, 3.4 isn't coming back. Need to stop always trashing on AST until the end of time while living in the past that was 3.4. It's gone.

If they somehow mess up that bad, then you can come full swing pitchforks out and i'll be there with you since I like WHM a lot too, but so far I don't see that happening and 3.4 fear mongering is just a waste of time.

[Kabzy]

Exactly. And in a game that leads everyone down the same path of 'dps above all else' where does that leave WHM?

Non existant raid DPS from WHM is currently a thing, and if you scroll up you can see the numbers yourself. Clearly this isn't leaving WHM out anywhere.

I'd be surprised if there are even more than 2 people here who actually run speed kill "meta" comps who would care about this stuff. If a job is viable, people will use it. Speed runners will leave out WHM, as well as 6 other jobs, but that's a minority within a minority. Literally just get over it and actually see the changes in place before coming to any conclusions.

When those deficiencies stop being small and the raids are balanced around the assumption of comps that aren't awful, what do you think happens?

Nothing, because no job in this game so far has been so bad that it was completely unable to clear relevant content in the game. Not even 3.0 AST was trash enough to not be able to clear the content back then.
Also the scenario you give, as in clearing raid content, implies progression. The one area where WHM is actually strongest. So your point isn't completely supporting your implications.