SCH needs some nerfs

[FalalaMaru]

The circle of buffs only leads to inadvertent and indirect content nerfs. After buffing WHM and AST let's say WHM comes out way ahead of the other healers. By your logic that means we then have to buff AST and SCH to match. Before you know it you've repeated the end of HW with BRD and MCH. I would rather they not do this with the healers which is why I think WHM and SCH need to be brought in line with AST. For WHM that means buffing either it's pDPS or adding rDPS to compensate, for SCH that means forcing some more GCD healing and/or reducing its pDPS or rDPS contribution.

This isn't rocket science.

You misunderstand me when I say "fix" a class, I did not mean a direct "buff". You could buff white mage potency on their dps, hps and even give them a faster gcd and it still would not fix the core problem that whm's have with lilies and plenary. Whm's are by no means the weaker of the 2 healers, in fact it still retains it's identity as the strongest pure healer but it is in dire need of some changes. Looking back both SCHs and ASTs also had their own share of problems :

Excog Quality of life change
Quickened Aetherflow
Fairy spending gauge while not actually healing it's tether target during fey union because target was too far
Lightspeed penalty removal as well as better mp management
Malefic gcd change that resolved all clipping issues
The ability to click cards off again
CU effect being instant now which allows weaving

WHMs also receive some quality of life changes with benison and plenary (iirc) but lilies (even after the buff) still remain as something that could be deleted from the game and would have no impact on WHMs are being played right now. The core design of using lilies as WHMs identity is just bad that it would take a huge buff(WHM)/debuff(SCH/AST) to get it out of its predicament and even then it will just be memed on like SAM/BLM.

[Eloah]

Okay, regardless of anyone's personal preferences on any of these topics, please stop quoting data that you should not have access to, or if you do cited a source. You are doing more harm than good by giving out info that should only be on the developers side not the players.

[MoroMurasaki]

Okay, regardless of anyone's personal preferences on any of these topics, please stop quoting data that you should not have access to, or if you do cited a source. You are doing more harm than good by giving out info that should only be on the developers side not the players.

The sky high clear rates for SCH are evidence supporting the disparity that I'm talking about. If it bothers you I'm sorry but I'm still glad someone linked them.

If you searched someone's house without a warrant and found a dead body there would still need to be an investigation - just because you "aren't supposed to" have access to that doesn't change the fact that we do and it's a neon sign pointing at jobs like SCH and BRD.

As for WHM being the strongest healer - no, not for Alphascape by a long shot. Even if we write off the massive aggro issues brought on by Cure III it's also less useful than ever in the final fight. People are almost never stacked in o12s. Beyond that WHM has a slower casting, 240-more-mp AoE Regen that heals for a whopping 40 more potency over the duration than Aspected Helios and plenary which is lackluster to say the least.

They could certainly make a fight where WHM in it's current iteration would shine but they have not this tier and to imply it's anything but the absolute weakest choice to bring as a healer is disingenuous.

[Dualgunner]

I also see you're not even a WHM or healer main so I don't know why you're here when it's very obvious you don't know what you're talking about.

Check past page one of FFLogs. Not everyone's done everything in Alphascape. (Check Sigmascape Savage)

[KDSilver]

There's nothing new on official forums about people not even knowing what they're talking about but crying for absurd nerf/rebalance without understanding what they're blaming, especially about healers.

[Eloah]

If you searched someone's house without a warrant and found a dead body there would still need to be an investigation - just because you "aren't supposed to" have access to that doesn't change the fact that we do and it's a neon sign pointing at jobs like SCH and BRD

Two things, for now. Why is Bard suddenly in this discussion? This is a discussion on healer balance let's try and fail to keep it that way.

Also, I was giving you and anyone else a warning. These threads are monitored, a lot, and if you or anyone else give out information that isn't common knowledge, especially info that is very specific, that you shouldn't have access to, it's a giant red flag. It's basically like saying, "hey SE I parse". And we all know the rules about it. If you cited a source, or make your info more vague or generalized, you aren't painting a target on yourself. The fact that this thread is specifically mentioning raids and not the game as a whole, adds to that. SE could start suspending people, they could do nothing, but why risk it over a petty discussion.

Also if we are pointing fingers, can I call WHM OP for having the best burst heals in the game, the best burst DPS of the healer, and the best AoE of the healers... I'm not wrong, but why isn't this a discussion, hmm.

[MoroMurasaki]

Typical below average player trying to give their opinion on what's OP and what's not. The fact that you're mainly complaining about SCH and not AST is big yikes my dude. All your arguments are so bad. SCH and AST are very fleshed out classes compared to WHM, that is why they are so good. You could remove Chain Strat but that would just make AST the most broken being 500+ rDPS ahead of the other healers at all times. The reason you're even in this thread is becasue WHM is so bad but that's because SE did a poor job designing them at SB. 3/4 of their new skills were horrible at launch but because they fixed Benison so now it's just Lily's and Planery that are bad. DB is meh with a SCH because a SCHs fairy can handle most single target damage so it's just there. Not to mention compared with Tetra and Bene it's just kinda overkill. Thin Air is the best skill they got but it's pretty useless in most fights as you won't reach the point where you'll really need it.

So literally 3/4 or (4/4 skills with a SCH) are pretty bad. Compare that to SCH and AST kits for Stormblood, which are all very well designed and meshed with their old kits well, then you're probably pretty salty as the four skills AST and SCHs got during Stormblood are very useful.

Stop complaining that SCHs and ASTs are OP or broken because they aren't. They're only OP or broken when you compare it to WHM which is in the gutter right now and that's SE fault. Start complaining to them to actually fix your bad job. Tell them to increase your pDPS, tell them to make Planery last 30 or more seconds, tell them to fix lilys so they proc off regens/benison and not single target heals that you DON'T USE or just scrap lily's and make a new mechanic, tell them to fix Asylum because it's archaic design makes it a very very worse Collective Unconcious. Having to stand in one spot for a regen is such a bad design. Tell them to increase the healing done with Assize. But don't go whining other jobs are broken because your job is broken fundamentally.

I also see you're not even a WHM or healer main so I don't know why you're here when it's very obvious you don't know what you're talking about.

Thank you for giving me a laugh this morning, the SCH salt at being called out is strong.

If you think AST is the bigger threat to WHM you have a lot to learn and I wish you the best in that fictional world you're living in.

Perhaps address the actual SCH criticism instead of pointing the finger at AST which is perhaps the only healer balanced properly for Alphascape? Maybe spend a little less time determining the validity of my arguments via my logs (while being the actual meme elitist, suuuuuper glad we are giving people that complain about that more ammo btw -_-; ) and more actually thinking about what's being said.

I agree WHM is weak this tier. WHM being weak isn't changing the fact that SCH is too strong though. Look at tank clear rates. WAR and PLD are quite high and close and then DRK is abysmally (lolpun) behind. If it were really a situation similar to that with SCH and AST being fine and WHM being weak as the main issue our clear rates would look like that. They dont, they're split more than 40% SCH with WHM and AST being much closer than AST and SCH.

Give me some more salt to read on my lunch by break, guys!

[Genaux]

I saw a post in another thread comparing the DPS differences between WHM and AST a while ago and that inspired me to do the same thing, but with all three healers. All the data was pulled from fflogs a few days ago during week 7 so it should still be fairly representative.

Here are the DPS thresholds for various percentiles for each of the encounters. I bolded the top DPS in each category.

---Chaos---
99th: AST: 4218 SCH: 4182 WHM: 3620
95th: AST: 3734 SCH: 3689 WHM: 3241
75th: AST: 2991 SCH: 3034 WHM: 2685
50th: AST: 2565 SCH: 2449 WHM: 2267
25th: AST: 1923 SCH: 2089 WHM: 1844

---Midgardsormr---
99th: AST: 3524 SCH: 3530 WHM: 3206
95th: AST: 3141 SCH: 3132 WHM: 2864
75th: AST: 2566 SCH: 2585 WHM: 2419
50th: AST: 2160 SCH: 2234 WHM: 2107
25th: AST: 1803 SCH: 1908 WHM: 1802

---Omega---
99th: AST: 3871 SCH: 3827 WHM: 3245
95th: AST: 3403 SCH: 3355 WHM: 2944
75th: AST: 2791 SCH: 2766 WHM: 2486
50th: AST: 2393 SCH: 2413 WHM: 2199
25th: AST: 2024 SCH: 2097 WHM: 1905

---Omega M/F---
99th: AST: 3586 SCH: 3589 WHM: 3380
95th: AST: 3164 SCH: 3208 WHM: 3028
75th: AST: 2617 SCH: 2718 WHM: 2559
50th: AST: 2245 SCH: 2398 WHM: 2247
25th: AST: 1924 SCH: 2107 WHM: 1958

---Final Omega---
99th: AST: 3776 SCH: 3815 WHM: 3577
95th: AST: 3363 SCH: 3387 WHM: 3113
75th: AST: 2732 SCH: 2772 WHM: 2534
50th: AST: 2225 SCH: 2425 WHM: 2241
25th: AST: 1963 SCH: 2116 WHM: 1984
---

AST and SCH appear to be pretty neck and neck in terms of DPS in a lot of these fights, with only a single digit of difference between them in some cases. In none of these fights in any of the selected percentile categories does WHM come out on top.

Unless you are solo-healing or doing something uncommon like doubling up on healing jobs, you will be paired with another healer of a different job. Because of this, its also interesting to look at the pick rates of all the healer compositions. I made a quick bar graph displaying the composition pick rates based on the number of unique pairs of healers who are ranked for each fight.

Number of unique pairs of healers with clears for each of the fights:
---Chaos---
SCH/AST: 7821 SCH/WHM: 10232 WHM/AST: 6081

---Midgardsormr---
SCH/AST: 5990 SCH/WHM: 10395 WHM/AST: 3421

---Omega---
SCH/AST: 4693 SCH/WHM: 6539 WHM/AST: 1639

---Omega M/F---
SCH/AST: 5799 SCH/WHM: 4440 WHM/AST: 461

---Final Omega---
SCH/AST: 2234 SCH/WHM: 1302 WHM/AST: 105

Pick rates in graphical form:


SCH/WHM Starts out popular in the lower floors and is gradually overtaken by SCH/AST by the later floors. For AST/WHM however, the pick rate gradually gets worse in later floors, bottoming out at a measly 2.9% pick rate among cleared healer pairs for Final Omega.

There are probably a lot of reasons why the pick rates are the way they are, and I don't feel I am really qualified to discuss them at length. I hope this data can be useful to somebody though.

[MoroMurasaki]

Also if we are pointing fingers, can I call WHM OP for having the best burst heals in the game, the best burst DPS of the healer, and the best AoE of the healers... I'm not wrong, but why isn't this a discussion, hmm.

Because AoE dps is more or less irrelevant to raiding, that burst dps is more than balanced out by the awful sustained dps that WHM offers for a myriad of reasons and using Cure III anything more frequently than the other healers use their major AoE heals like Indom or Earthly Star is asking to rip off of the tank.

Also, this.

---Chaos---
99th: AST: 4218 SCH: 4182 WHM: 3620
95th: AST: 3734 SCH: 3689 WHM: 3241
75th: AST: 2991 SCH: 3034 WHM: 2685
50th: AST: 2565 SCH: 2449 WHM: 2267
25th: AST: 1923 SCH: 2089 WHM: 1844

---Midgardsormr---
99th: AST: 3524 SCH: 3530 WHM: 3206
95th: AST: 3141 SCH: 3132 WHM: 2864
75th: AST: 2566 SCH: 2585 WHM: 2419
50th: AST: 2160 SCH: 2234 WHM: 2107
25th: AST: 1803 SCH: 1908 WHM: 1802

---Omega---
99th: AST: 3871 SCH: 3827 WHM: 3245
95th: AST: 3403 SCH: 3355 WHM: 2944
75th: AST: 2791 SCH: 2766 WHM: 2486
50th: AST: 2393 SCH: 2413 WHM: 2199
25th: AST: 2024 SCH: 2097 WHM: 1905

---Omega M/F---
99th: AST: 3586 SCH: 3589 WHM: 3380
95th: AST: 3164 SCH: 3208 WHM: 3028
75th: AST: 2617 SCH: 2718 WHM: 2559
50th: AST: 2245 SCH: 2398 WHM: 2247
25th: AST: 1924 SCH: 2107 WHM: 1958

---Final Omega---
99th: AST: 3776 SCH: 3815 WHM: 3577
95th: AST: 3363 SCH: 3387 WHM: 3113
75th: AST: 2732 SCH: 2772 WHM: 2534
50th: AST: 2225 SCH: 2425 WHM: 2241
25th: AST: 1963 SCH: 2116 WHM: 1984

You would think the job with the strongest potency base filler would come out on top at least once. It's almost like there is a problem. Also, startling! Another example of SCH completely dominating the competition.

[HyperiusUltima]

I'd want to say that if you're going to continue the discussion, it'd be paramount to have an optimized WHM give data personally so we can see what's possible. Still, in regards to the fairy, I think that everyone's been saying FAIRY OP ever since Heavensward. Even with the numerous nerfs they've done to Embrace they still need to lower its potency even more. Let's also not forget the fact that Eos is still a heal machine with Whispering Wind and Fey Illumination available, one of which is basically a free Healing Increase Buff for high raid damage.