What is imbalanced about the healers. I keep seeing this said everywhere.

[Ilyrian]

The devs made the (baffling) decision to reinforce WHM's identity as a "healy healer" (despite the meta having shifted away from GCD heals), and though they got Benison (which was hot garbage on release), it straight up can't compete with AST and SCH's mitigation. Adding insult to injury, SCH got a party buff (Stratagem) and AST got the incredibly ridiculous Earthly Star, closing the gap between WHM and AST for good - AST doesn't even need to rely on Indomitability anymore, as Earthly is straight up more powerful. Balance being nerfed back to its original state changed little.

The whole post is correct - and this is the point I'll never be able to square - it's a real 'what were they thinking' moment. The people who designed the game - who knew the game better than anyone because they literally programmed it - decided that WHM was solely a 'healer' - yet knew the game didn't require or couldn't sustain that class build. Utter madness.

[Nathanial]

So, I'm not particularly great with FFlogs, but I got a way to find data I was looking for in a roundabout way that probably isn't the easiest method. I did this by going to rankings, looking at healer combined damage, selecting the various healer compositions and literally just paging through 10 pages at a time till I found the end of the list.

Regardless, I went and looked for Final Omega parses of all healer compositions. Including double WHM, double SCH, double AST (of which there were like 4 double AST and 2 double SCH or something). If you want to see scholar domination, this is where you see it.

I found:
917 WHM+AST parses
10964 AST+SCH parses
8894 WHM+SCH parses.

That is 20775 parses. Scholar is part of 19858 of them. With three healers in the game, scholar is found in over 95% of the clears of this fight. Scholar's strengths and reasons it has maintained a deathgrip on a 'all-but-mandatory' slot go beyond a short and dry potency list, and really healer optimization goes heavily into oGCD use so you won't be seeing many of those Adlos to begin with. I won't go into it all here right now, but it's a culmination of what many of their CDs and mobility options allow them to do on top of benefits from the fairy and no super huge MP concerns despite WHM having quite a lot of MP sustain (It's not really needed especially if you have Refresh or people are dying like D-day). It's a significant discussion and it has to be compared to its "competition" of Noct AST's abysmal standing because that too is part of the reason SCH is so well represented; Noct AST just blows in comparison for what raids require.

But a > 95% representation in Final Omega should show what people mean when they mention scholar domination.

I see that yes scholars are in fact a dps healer cause they come from a dps class. However I would like to know how many raids actually tried running whm+astro with both classes using regen stance. They can keep regen up constantly and they stack ticking off heals higher than fairy heals allowing for both healers to dps. I think if people start treating scholar as a healer and less of a dps they will find that both other classes are as viable and scholar domination has nothing to do with healing an everything to do with how how they have dps. In which case, how many raids had 1 healer and how many times was it a scholar vs anything other than a scholar?

[Mesarthim]

As an AST main I find its sects extremely stupid. Honestly if it was possible to do so I'd make it so I cannot be randomly paired with ASTs, even at the cost of a queue time increase. This whole regen/shield one or the other shenanigans is basically the source of all of my cohealer duty finder woes.

Play SCH and get an intentional Noct AST? Check
Play AST and get paired with a card overwriting sectless or incorrect sect AST? Check.

Though I am still concerned on the upcoming battle changes.

[Sebazy]

I see that yes scholars are in fact a dps healer cause they come from a dps class. However I would like to know how many raids actually tried running whm+astro with both classes using regen stance. They can keep regen up constantly and they stack ticking off heals higher than fairy heals allowing for both healers to dps. I think if people start treating scholar as a healer and less of a dps they will find that both other classes are as viable and scholar domination has nothing to do with healing an everything to do with how how they have dps. In which case, how many raids had 1 healer and how many times was it a scholar vs anything other than a scholar?

It's less that their DPS is outright better, and more that they have solid healing options whilst maintaining high DPS. The point earlier about part of WHM's problem being down to Noct AST's weakness is also worth highlighting again here. Earthly Star and ED are decent burst oGCDs but they struggle outside of that with CU also being very powerful especially now, but still struggling to match Whispering Dawn's consistency across an entire encounter.

So yeah, SCH is the arguably the best DPS healer because of it's healing kit's overall GCD efficiency.

As mentioned, WHM isn't remotely competitive on this front and as such, it's haemorrhages DPS whenever it can't simply stand there turreting rocks.

Double regens generally isn't viable in Savage though as you tend to require some healer mitigation at some point or another. I've pulled off some fights like O4S that way, but I wouldn't recommend it as a good comp any time soon. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of my Savage solo heals have been on WHM, except on Creator where they were all on AST.

[Ceasaria]

Perhaps this reddit post will help the OP understand the healer meta situation. It's really well done.

It will be interesting if SE can go back in time, look at the original WHM/SCH (because it works well here) and try another path for the implementation of AST and the balancing between the 3 healers.
I think the sentence of the mysterious man is dedicated to us : rewrite the healers history.

[Coltvoyance]

It's a bit sad that Yoshi insists WHM should be healer only. Given they use elemental magic, they could very well use their spells also to buff or debuff. Slightly petrify an enemy so all damage against that target is increased for a few seconds. Or, borrow from FFXI's En-Element line of spells and give WHM Enholy, a spell they can cast on the entire party to grant them a holy damage proc.

There are many things they could do if they were willing to think beyond "WHM heals!"

I'd love to see En-Element party buffs for WHM. It could synergize so well. Lets say I cast En-Aero to give everyone wind-procs, then imagine that those wind-procs do slashing damage. Imagine I cast En-Stone and those stone-procs do blunt damage? It would solve so many issues and let WHM stand on equal footing with other healers in terms of utility.

I think Yoshi is finally convinced that his direction for WHM may not work anymore, maybe. I am still troubled by him saying it'll be "easier" though....

[Ogulbuk]

I think Yoshi is finally convinced that his direction for WHM may not work anymore, maybe. I am still troubled by him saying it'll be "easier" though....

Easier: Holy will now heal your party at the same time it deals damage (o.O)

[Seraphor]

'Easier' can mean a whole lot of things, and when they use it, it usually does mean just about anything.

It could be as simple and giving it more mobility via less/insta cast times on certain things.

[Laphael]

When I heal I am a white mage and I have no issues, and the gameplay is fun to me. My friend is astro amd loves it and seems to do just sa well. When we have a scholar they seem just as fine despite the fact they seem to forget they're a healer some times lol.

So what are these balance issues everyone talks about? I genuinely am not aware.

The thing is, all the balance only matters for metacomps in savage raids and ultimate.
Everywhere else you can play any class you want. WHM for dungeons is great -> holy all the things!

[Felien]

In EX or savage is where this balance really meters. On other duties all jobs are fine, because is a content for every player so they can’t make it more difficult.
When it comes to more difficult content the comp is more important. After the a3s this game have a massive change in terms of healing and healer dps. Before that the non-avoidable dmg was bigger and with less time between then, but also less movement and avoidable mechanics. Well it was a wall for a lot of statics, so they decided to change. Since the amount of healing was “reduced” and we need more movement, Whm becomes really weak. No utilities, no pt buff, low movement compare to the Ast and Sch. Ast on shield stance have revived some nerfs and regen buff in potency. Sch become a true beast with lv 68 traits and new skills, Ast becomes more stronger and Whm still have fluid aura and now does no dmg.
In case of the dps having more or less raid utilities can be “fix” on having a bigger dps, but in healer side we have a ceiling. We don’t need a 10k healing on a 3k fight.