Shield/Pure Healer Split Feedback

[Supersnow845]

The point is a spreadlo with a decent number of situations can save you around 1 or 2 gcd heals in multi hit situations when used in combination with % mitigation (1-2 gcd for both healer) . For example dsr p7 gigaflare or akh morn tower. The gain outweighs a decent number of times the cost.

You can also use it to save mitigation on orbs in P4 which generally leads to you not needing to have to GCD healing on the subsequent tower phase where you are generally short on mitigation because the general strat is to kitchen sink the orbs mitigation

It’s quite often a benefit even if you are taking it from the perspective of “every adlo is a loss” but that also comes down to whether you consider dissipation energy drain as a gain to use or a loss to not use

[Renathras]

Recently I had to unleash some praying mantis kung-fu when I mentioned that WHM isn't in a bad place among the other healers despite their lack of mitigation ability. It's almost like players want this job to be in a bad place, and in perpetual misery. Mitigation has been the chief go-to argument in this regard.

Oh, don't mistake me. WHM is FUNCTIONAL as a healer in FFXIV right now.

But, it's the weakest in terms of high end fights (when it matters; anyone can clear low end fights, often without a healer), and that's why it's fallen out in terms of the meta, speedkill runs, and so on. As others have pointed out, mitigation matters. Extreme fights you can save a DPS from death with a critlo (or sometimes just a regular Adlo) if they got clipped by one boss ability (so have a vuln stack) and are about to eat a second. Your WHM Bene can get them to 100% health, but that next attack dealing 105% of their healthbar means they still die. On the other hand, a Sacred Soil lowering that damage by 10% (so down to around 95%) or an Adlo giving them 20% of their health as overshield (so they survive the hit with 15% health remaining) DO prevent their death.

This is why mitigation and shielding are better.

The only case that pure healing has an edge is in Doom heal checks, like SoS's opening where everyone's HP drops to 1 and you have to fullheal everyone before the timer runs out or they KO. But when we look at those cases, literally every healer is capable of getting that job done (with their heal partner). SGE/SGE or SCH/SCH have enough healing to meet the check if they have the gear level for it. Pre-Seraph, drop Soil, pop Illumination, Excog on each tank (for SCH/SCH), Emergency Tactics Succor, Consolation, Indom. Bam, you've healed everyone, no WHM or even AST needed. You probably don't even need ALL OF THAT healing. Honestly, an Illumination 2x Indoms and 2x Emergency Succor probably will already do the job without needing the rest.

Likewise, multi-hit attacks like ZodEx's lasers can be shielded (so barriers help) and mitigated (so damage reduction mitigation helps).

So there's no case where you NEED pure healing, and any case that pure healing is useful, barrier healing is just as effective. So your equality is wrong:

It's not pure = barrier.

It's pure = barrier in the case barriers don't work AND pure < barrier when barriers DO work.

There's no case where pure > barrier.

Add to this that WHM has the fewest barriers, fewest mitigations, AND doesn't have a party damage buff like SCH and AST do, and you end up with it being the weakest of all worlds.

It's still USABLE, but it's also still the weakest.

.

EDIT:

Spreadlo just shows your inability to accept fact. It is NEVER free.

Okay, I'm a BIT confused.

On the one hand, you're saying in this post that as long as a party with 1 WHM can clear content, it's cool. But then you say this. In what case is a SCH foregoing one Broil's worth of damage to cast an Adlo going to lead to failing an Enrage? In regular content (all the stuff you say matters), there's no time that's the case. Do any non-Extreme/Savage in the game on a SCH and cast ZERO BROILS and you'll still clear the content. There may be one or two very rare exceptions (the twin sword sisters at the end of Ghimlit Dark have a DPS check, I think), but these are extremely rare cases and you may not even need the healer to attack to clear them.

So what does it matter that it is "NEVER free" by costing a single damage GCD when you're talking about normal content and not Extreme/Savage/Ultimate?

The only time losing out on 1 Broil's worth of damage WOULD matter is Extreme/Savage/Ultimate, in which case Spreadlo saving DPS from dying is more important since a dead DPS or Raised DPS is going to cost the party FAR more damage than your one Broil will.

This is the weirdest "academic" argument I've ever heard, as you're arguing out both sides. On the one hand, you act like you're talking about normal content so mitigation doesn't matter, but then you keep pinging this DPS loss argument, which ONLY matters in high end content where MITIGATION ALSO matters.

The premise of the argument is nonsensical. You need to pick one or the other.

If we're talking Normal content:

Yes, mitigation rarely (or never) matters. Even saving a DPS from death with a clutch Adlo is going to be completely irrelevant in...Labyrinth of the Ancients. BUT, by that same token, you missing out on one Broil isn't going to cause your party to wipe to Xande, either.

If we're talking Extreme/Savage/Ultimate content:

NOW the tradeoff of damage GCD for mitigation GCD matters...but if that mitigation GCD saves a DPS from dying, it's a net gain. Moreover, it's EXTREMELY rare you're going to miss a damage check due to the loss of a single Broil unless your party is barely able to clear the fight anyway.

So in the latter case, the damage cost matters, but the mitigation matters more. In the former case, neither matter, so why are you even worried about losing 1 Broil's worth of Damage while running Sasthasha normal?

Your argument just seems nonsensical since the only time it DOES matter is when it DOESN'T matter. Which makes no sense. In logic, "A" and "Not A" cannot be true at the same time.

[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.

[Mortex]

Oh, don't mistake me. WHM is FUNCTIONAL as a healer in FFXIV right now.

But, it's the weakest in terms of high end fights (when it matters; anyone can clear low end fights, often without a healer), and that's why it's fallen out in terms of the meta, speedkill runs, and so on. As others have pointed out, mitigation matters. Extreme fights you can save a DPS from death with a critlo (or sometimes just a regular Adlo) if they got clipped by one boss ability (so have a vuln stack) and are about to eat a second. Your WHM Bene can get them to 100% health, but that next attack dealing 105% of their healthbar means they still die. On the other hand, a Sacred Soil lowering that damage by 10% (so down to around 95%) or an Adlo giving them 20% of their health as overshield (so they survive the hit with 15% health remaining) DO prevent their death.

This is why mitigation and shielding are better.

The only case that pure healing has an edge is in Doom heal checks, like SoS's opening where everyone's HP drops to 1 and you have to fullheal everyone before the timer runs out or they KO. But when we look at those cases, literally every healer is capable of getting that job done (with their heal partner). SGE/SGE or SCH/SCH have enough healing to meet the check if they have the gear level for it. Pre-Seraph, drop Soil, pop Illumination, Excog on each tank (for SCH/SCH), Emergency Tactics Succor, Consolation, Indom. Bam, you've healed everyone, no WHM or even AST needed. You probably don't even need ALL OF THAT healing. Honestly, an Illumination 2x Indoms and 2x Emergency Succor probably will already do the job without needing the rest.

Likewise, multi-hit attacks like ZodEx's lasers can be shielded (so barriers help) and mitigated (so damage reduction mitigation helps).

So there's no case where you NEED pure healing, and any case that pure healing is useful, barrier healing is just as effective. So your equality is wrong:

It's not pure = barrier.

It's pure = barrier in the case barriers don't work AND pure < barrier when barriers DO work.

There's no case where pure > barrier.

Add to this that WHM has the fewest barriers, fewest mitigations, AND doesn't have a party damage buff like SCH and AST do, and you end up with it being the weakest of all worlds..

Also in a long run a big ass shield worth 50% of the party’s hp with good mitigation is worth 2 gcd from both healer you normally would have to heal. God king phase in dsr pushes the gcd and ogcd use if you go for the standard 2-3-3 tower (like no one in his right mind now plays 2-3-3 and rather goes 1-1-6 with kitchen sink and immunity on the tanks) and in combination with the gigaflare proximity bombs the entire phase is a mitigation fest and a big ass shield that blocks 1-2 of these hits is a godsend

[Supersnow845]

.

EDIT:



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.

This is a really good explanation, you play all healers semi consistently and you just notice holes in WHM, lack of mitigation you are just programmed to hit on the other healers, lack of consistent use clutch single target heals, lack of meaningful sustain outside of HP ping pong, lack of weave slots

WHM just feels like it’s playing a different game and it doesn’t play well in 14

[ForteNightshade]

For anyone arguing WHM's deficiencies aren't a problem. I'll point to the singular healer comp that, while still viable, is severely limited: WHM and AST.

Now could it be Astro's kit contributing to the problem? To some extent, yes. Earthly Star, for example, trips over Assize as the two abilities often are up at comparable times and rarely is 1,120 healing potency ever needed in the spam of 20 seconds. Otherwise, Astro's healing kit cooperates fairly well with both Sage and Scholar. Of course, what actually keeps the job alive is raid buffs. Now on the flip side, White Mage and Scholar are the only two healing who force one another to GCD heal at least once because their kits can't synergize. They simply run out of oGCDs. I believe Scholar can mitigate this by dropping some Energy Drains but either way, it's a DPS loss. Sage works well but effectively carrying White Mage's deficiencies due to having so much free healing resources.

And it's that last point that causes problem. Astro simply can't carry White Mage. Even with the bevy of tools at its disposal, it still lacks mitigation options unique to shield healers. Okay, great! That's the whole point of having both a "Pure" and "Shield" healer.

Except Sage and Scholar synergize beautifully. In fact, if it weren't for Sage lacking a raid buff, this would be the meta comp without question. At least out of early prog. Mitigating damage as a whole is simply widely superior compared to healing it because all healers need to be capable of healing. Thus, you can't have either White Mage or Astro truly be a powerhouse in this category. And because they simply refuse to make outgoing damage demand shields, mitigation and raw healing, the former two dominate—in particular mitigation—once ilvl creep starts to trivialize everything. The long and short of it is White Mage needs to be carried for it to be both effective and efficient. Can it clear content? Absolutely. Can it do so without GCD healing? Yep. But every other healer can simply do it significantly better.

White Mage's "identity" is leeching off its co-healers better designed healing kits. Which wouldn't inherently be bad... if it had the damage potential to justify that. It doesn't.

[Supersnow845]

For anyone arguing WHM's deficiencies aren't a problem. I'll point to the singular healer comp that, while still viable, is severely limited: WHM and AST.

Now could it be Astro's kit contributing to the problem? To some extent, yes. Earthly Star, for example, trips over Assize as the two abilities often are up at comparable times and rarely is 1,120 healing potency ever needed in the spam of 20 seconds. Otherwise, Astro's healing kit cooperates fairly well with both Sage and Scholar. Of course, what actually keeps the job alive is raid buffs. Now on the flip side, White Mage and Scholar are the only two healing who force one another to GCD heal at least once because their kits can't synergize. They simply run out of oGCDs. I believe Scholar can mitigate this by dropping some Energy Drains but either way, it's a DPS loss. Sage works well but effectively carrying White Mage's deficiencies due to having so much free healing resources.

And it's that last point that causes problem. Astro simply can't carry White Mage. Even with the bevy of tools at its disposal, it still lacks mitigation options unique to shield healers. Okay, great! That's the whole point of having both a "Pure" and "Shield" healer.

Except Sage and Scholar synergize beautifully. In fact, if it weren't for Sage lacking a raid buff, this would be the meta comp without question. At least out of early prog. Mitigating damage as a whole is simply widely superior compared to healing it because all healers need to be capable of healing. Thus, you can't have either White Mage or Astro truly be a powerhouse in this category. And because they simply refuse to make outgoing damage demand shields, mitigation and raw healing, the former two dominate—in particular mitigation—once ilvl creep starts to trivialize everything. The long and short of it is White Mage needs to be carried for it to be both effective and efficient. Can it clear content? Absolutely. Can it do so without GCD healing? Yep. But every other healer can simply do it significantly better.

White Mage's "identity" is leeching off its co-healers better designed healing kits. Which wouldn't inherently be bad... if it had the damage potential to justify that. It doesn't.

I think this just seeps into the idea of regen healers are built for a game that isn’t 14, shield healers feel like they are designed for 14, regen healers feel like they are designed for MOP

[Kabzy]

...

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.

Ironically I think it's actually you who doesn't understand what optimal and suboptimal means. It's not the people who shaped the game into what it is right now, the reason people don't want to spend GCDs on healing and why it is optimal is because there's no need to. In fact outside of ultimate, there would be no reason to cast any healing GCDs. You're never in this scenario you mentioned at the end if everyone was playing optimally. Using a GCD heal to rectify a mistake will never be seen as optimal play.

Granted not everyone does play optimally, in fact most people don't, but theorycrafting is a lot different to actual gameplay. And this applies to many scenarios. AST, for example, is only better than WHM in the most optimal of groups. If you go down from top percentiles, you'll notice WHM takes over in damage. In fact for some duties like DSR, WHM is currently at the top. Nobody talks about that though because theorycrafting is based around the jobs maximum potential, and in that scenario AST wins. You can't just pick and choose when you want to look at the top end of play and when not.

I do agree though that it would be a nicer system for healers if we did have to use GCD heals more. Personally I'd be a fan of reverting to the ARR days where you have 1 emergency heal and the rest GCDs. But this is a conversation that has been had many times and I don't think it's getting anyone anywhere.

[Payadopa]

Honestly, I think it's dumb and arbitrary. Regen healers have shields, shield healers have regens. It's pointless. I don't think anything of value was gained that way.

[Supersnow845]

Honestly, I think it's dumb and arbitrary. Regen healers have shields, shield healers have regens. It's pointless. I don't think anything of value was gained that way.

Well AST has shields

Basically it just artificially restricted half the healers from one half of a healers kit while giving the other half everything they wanted