Shield/Pure Healer Split Feedback

[Renathras]

I wouldn't call it worthless, but it's not the most overpowered ability when it's suboptimal to use in all content bar ultimate. In fact the only real time you can use it in current savage is the couple of GCDs you get for free before the adds phase on P3S. Gemina is correct in that it's not free, and outside of ultimate it's a waste when abilities like Expedient and Consolation mitigate any raidwide efficiently.

I think a lot of people don't understand what optimal and suboptimal REALLY mean.

You're trading 1 Broil for a Spreadlo.

That's it.

295 potency of damage. Somewhere in the ballpark of, what, 10,000 damage? Which is, what, around 0.01% of a boss' health bar?

That's RIDICULOUSLY insignificant. No fight in the game is going to be won or lost by that amount of damage outside of that clutch Ultimate where a Carby got the final hit in. This idea that using ANY GCD for a non-damage spell is going to cost the fight seriously needs to die in a fire. Especially when we start factoring in alternatives - any time a DPS dies, it is a bigger DPS loss than a lost Broil if using an Adlo instead of a Broil could have saved the DPS's life. There is no exception to that rule.

This slavish devotion to "every GCD must be an attack spell" is ridiculous bordering on mental illness.

Yes, it's a "DPS loss", but a loss THAT WILL NOT BE RELEVANT in almost any content, and quite possibly IN ANY content. If the rest of your team is competent, you should not be bumping into an Enrage over ONE lost Broil. Ever. If you are, then it's not the SCH that's the problem, it's the rest of the party being WAY MORE SUBOPTIMAL than one lost Broil.

Now, are there generally better tools? Yes. If the party isn't messing up mechanics, we have so many oGCDs now we can deal with almost anything. But this idea that casting a Succor or Adlo is going to be "suboptimal" and cause fight failures is ridiculous and borderline insane. Especially when a Deploy Critlo can prevent needing to use some other oGCDs, allowing the SCH to save them for later and them (or their co-healer) to not have to cast GCD heals (2 or more) at a different point in the fight.

So it's not always even a DPS loss on the fight as a whole since optimal is based on the WHOLE PARTY not a single character. If a Deploy Critlo now means a WHM won't have to cast 2x Cure 3s later, that's a net DPS gain for the party.

EDIT:

"WHM has zero unique capabilities, worse free healing, and its personal damage is never enough to make up for this, and it ends up falling into last place as far as high end desirability on a constant basis because of this" != "WHM is incapable of clearing content".

I swear it's like Scholar mains *want* their job to be worst in role or something, because they constantly dismiss actual balancing problems with WHM in favor of complaining that the strongest shield in the game "feeeels weak" because it costs a GCD, despite nearly every single raid tier's data showing SCH consistently as one of the most powerful healers in the game. Scholar isn't weak, it's just boring. WHM is boring AND weak.

Given our past interactions, I never thought I'd say this but...

I agree with Semirhage.

Mostly (I don't find SCH boring...but then I don't find WHM boring, either, just I find SCH more enjoyable, even if I hate Dissipation to the point I don't even have it on my bar - fite me!! )

I know...I'm scared too. XD

I guess my thing is I'm a semi-omni healer (WHM, SCH, and SGE - AST is the only one I don't touch other than bumping up to level cap each expansion when I get around to it), so I compare and contrast them a lot. On WHM, I consistently feel like I'm missing "something". Like doing the Dead Ends final boss (the one "whose steps were light and quick"), it does periodic raidwides. While I don't NEED to mitigate them, I always have a mitigation up often enough on all healers...except WHM. I use Temperance on the first, then when the second comes around...

...

...

Nothing. Because WHM doesn't have a second thing. Asylum (despite the name) doesn't offer protection, and Temperance's CD is 2 minutes. WHM has no Succor equivalent to soften the blow.

While the party CAN take the damage, it feels weird not having a mitigation tool TO use when I do on SCH and SGE. I feel like even AST is better off because it has 2 party mitigation tools and a party shield so that's functionally 3x the mitigation tools/frequency of what WHM has.