White Mage is falling behind while Astro keeps getting buffs

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I'm really glad that people are arguing against Cure III. This argument is obsolete, maybe you could have said this in ARR, or even HW, but now? When SCH has indom, possibly the most broken heal in the game and AST has Earthly Star? The argument that Cure III balances everything out just makes no sense.

As it stands, WHM brings nothing unique to the raid, no utility, doesn't even have the highest personal damage. To say a spammable aoe heal makes up for all these shortcomings is just ignorant.

The closest thing WHM gets to being unique is being the only healer able to rip aggro off the tank, which btw, needs to be looked at already. AST aggro issues were fixed yet WHM needs to deal with it? I bet in 5.0 we'll get a brand new spell that addresses this while the other healers get completely new things to better their job... Just like number473 said, WHM is getting tools that other healers have had since forever while the others get things to even further advance. It's like WHM is always 1 step behind for no real reason.

But this is getting off topic. The main thing is, the idea that Cure III excuses all shortcomings really needs to stop, and I'd rather them give us some unique abilities that makes us useful to the raid, rather than designing fights like Kefka that reduces HP to 1 just to artificially make Cure III seem worth it.

[HyperiusUltima]

I'd rather them give us some unique abilities that makes us useful to the raid, rather than designing fights like Kefka that reduces HP to 1 just to artificially make Cure III seem worth it.

Kefka was typically handled by both healers just fine, considering most threats after Heartless Angel and Heartless Archangel can easily be dealt with by SCH/AST's AoE heals just fine while keeping uptime. What needs to be evaluated though is what exactly does each healer bring in terms of strength, as well as contribution to the raid?

WHM - Doesn't contribute too much to the raid except for stuff like Divine Benison?(seriously, why lock something like this and just give us Stoneskin back already?) and having higher DPS. Changed in 4.4 due to AST getting indirectly buffed.

SCH - Brings Shields, Magic Mitigation(Fairy Eos), Party Haste(Fairy Selene), Healing Buff(Fairy Eos), Crit Buff, 10% Mitigation Field, Critical Shields(Doubles Mitigation of Adlo), Safety Net(Excog), Strong Single Target HoT(Fairy)

AST - Card Buffs(Attack/Cast Speed, Damage, Mitigation, Crit, and Resources), 10% Mitigation + HoT Field, Buff Extension(+15s for your casts, +10s for all effects separately)

So, what competition does WHM even have to bring to begin with when AST and SCH trample all over what makes it unique?

This reminds me too much of how Heavensward went in where WHM lost its identity. This is the same case here. Also, let's face it: They literally buffed AST's cast times just so that the job can play fluently like it was supposed to in the first place with its cards. SCH plays fluently enough considering it has DoTs to maintain as well as some heals. For WHM though? It's very clunky with having to clip your GCD just so that you can use Assize or an oGCD to begin with. If they manage to remove the clunkiness and bad job mechanics that plague WHM, maybe...JUST MAYBE we might see a proper balance here.