I really don’t know anymore….

[Renathras]

Uh, that's perilously close to being hyperbole sir

No. It's not.

Look guys, this is the THIRD person trying a "gotcha" here. And every one has been wrong in doing so. So just stop.

And the fact is, it's not even that you care. You just want to call me a hypocrite to diminish what I'm saying, you don't give an actual damn about hyperbole being bad (if you did, you'd join me in calling people not named Ren out for it, which you do not), nor have any of you correctly identified its use on my part. It's pure vindictiveness, not anything else, and destructive to actual conversation. If you really feel hyperbole is bad, call everyone out for it, not just Ren. If you don't think it's bad, then don't call it out. Otherwise you're holding a double standard. "But so are you, Ren!", except I'm not, because as noted, what I've used isn't hyperbole. :eyeroll

When I talk about people attacking me, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. "Let's try to catch Ren breaking his hyperbole rule!" "Will that prove him wrong?" "Well, no, but we can call him names like hypocrite and pretend like everything he says can be ignored now!" "But...weren't we doing that anyway?" "Yes, but it will surely really annoy him!"

.

Anyway, so you have two posts from a gamefaqs and a Reddit thread with net 0 upvotes (meaning likely negative votes) and the comments all talking about how WHM/SCH is the superior comp:

"While scholar may be "better" for most of the end game content, it requires people who know the class well enough to do the correct action at the right time. One mistake that isn't remedied or caught by the other healer will often result in a wipe."

"The whole idea of one being burst/aoe and one being shield/single target is why the synergy is so great in groups with one of each. There's no reason to nerf or buff anything, they work so well together."

"OP completely forgets about WHM traits: the thread."

"Yeah, this is a great point. Traited Stoneskin and Protect make a huge difference in raid damage mitigation.
When I play a SCH next to a WHM I always feel like such a scrub sitting there picking my nose waiting for my buffs, but seriously, why bother even casting when the WHM cranks out stronger everythings?"

"It's really not about which is necessarily better, it's about working together to make the fights easier on everyone."

"For me, SCH/WHM combo is the way to go. WHM increases healing from the 3% MND buff they bring, while SCH buffs PIE for the group. Having 2 scholars isn't ideal due to adloquium not stacking."

"Try turn 4 with double WHM with both WHM keeping regen up 100% on both tanks.
Just as effective as double SCH or WHM+SCH, if not more so.
Poor regen uptime seems to be the main cause for people thinking WHM is lacking in coil."

"I disagree with just about everything you say.
You use a lot of phrases like "very difficult without proper cooldown management" to make it seem like White Mages are inferior to Scholar; what you don't realize is proper cooldown management is a part of the White Mage's playstyle. That would be like me saying "Scholars need to know how to use their Aetherflow stacks efficiently" and listing that as a negative of the class. It just doesn't make sense.
Let's talk real endgame for a WHM, as the game stands now:

Ifrit HM: Solo-healed, minimal effort required.

Garuda HM: Solo-healed, minimal effort required.

Titan HM: Solo-healed. AoE healing is not difficult, as stomps don't interrupt Medica/Medica2's cast.

Caduceus: Not difficult for healers. Stoneskin mitigates big hits while Regen takes care of other party members.

ADS: Not difficult for healers. Medica II takes care of the room-wide AoE. Swiftcast available for the few times you actually have to cast on the move (even though you only move a few steps every minute).

Turn 4: Not difficult for healers. Not terribly mana-heavy for a White Mage if he knows when to use Shroud (can get three in during the fight's duration); no Ballad required. Stoneskin makes healing MT through double-dreadnaught phase easy, while Regen helps ease the burden on the offtank.

Twintania: Medica II makes conflagration phase a cakewalk. Stoneskin mitigates a huge chunk of Death Sentence, making it easily possible for a WHM to solo-heal a tank back up to full even with the debuff on. Lustrate does make the fight easier, though.

Of the fights you listed, I think a Scholar is a clear-cut "better class" in only ONE of them -- Twintania.

I fully agree that Scholars are the better class for Twintania, and that a huge part of a group's success relies upon the Scholar's skill. Lustrate is a godsend for after Death Sentence, and the rest of the tools a Scholar has at their disposal really does make that fight easier.

Other than that, though, endgame healing really isn't that hard at the moment. Any endgame WHM worth their salt will know when to use their cooldowns and how to conserve mana.

As far as I'm concerned, the only real "fix" I would like to see for White Mages would be a decrease in cast time for Stoneskin. If I can be really greedy, Stoneskin would get a mana reduction as well.

With my gear (full BiS i90, determination-based), Stoneskin's cast is longer than Death Sentence's; I have to keep a separate timer marked at 30s so I can pre-cast Stoneskin on the tank before Twintania begins casting Death Sentence. Stoneskin's longer cast time and higher mana cost relegate it to a support skill, while I think it would be more fun (and more useful) as a spell to use in regular rotation. Adloquium splits the difference nicely with a small heal and small shield; it'd be neat if WHMs get the option of Big Heal or Big Shield to compensate.

That's it, though. I don't think it's nearly as imbalanced as you say it is. Twintania's the only fight where healing class really makes a big difference."

.

...whether you agree with the people or not, the majority seem to not agree with the "SCH/SCH is superior" argument. Per the thread you, yourself, linked.

You can prop up your ARR raid bonifieds all you like, it seems that your position was not one held by people at the time by and large, regardless of the anecdote of how many people you talked to hanging around Wineport.

Though I suppose we'd need old fflogs data (which requires a subscription, so I can't pull it up) to see what people were doing at the time...except...it didn't exist at the time. So...there's no real way to prove your point either way. I suspect the general use case was WHM/SCH since it seemed logical to the way the game was designed, and most people kind of ran with it.

[ForsakenRoe]

Isn't all of that from the POV of 'play it safe to get a clear', rather than our current mindset of 'sod everything, maximise DPS at all costs (including wiping if necessary)'? So if Sebazy's point was to the latter, and all of that quoted is to the former, then you're arguing different 'this is best' states because they're both 'best', just in different criteria

[SweetPete]

I agree with this part. I personally have seen a few instances where people are tip-toeing around asking the healer to heal more even though it's actually needed. Like when we wiped to a small pull in a dungeon and the PLD apologises for not using Clemency. For this extreme, I've also had a party with 2 WHMs and we wipe to the stack beam because neither WHM wanted to do more than pop a couple Afflatus Raptures.

Honestly, if one good thing came out of old Cleric Stance in the ARR/HW era, it was that healers back then knew how to gauge incoming damage quite well.

Exactly. Why was the Paladin apologizing? That’s crazy to me. Paladin shouldn’t have to use clemency in a dungeon no less. Unless say the healer died and they are close to finishing off the boss and the paladin is keeping themselves and the other dps alive.

[ty_taurus]

When I talk about people attacking me, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. "Let's try to catch Ren breaking his hyperbole rule!" "Will that prove him wrong?" "Well, no, but we can call him names like hypocrite and pretend like everything he says can be ignored now!" "But...weren't we doing that anyway?" "Yes, but it will surely really annoy him!"

It's not about some sort of "gotcha!" moment. Imagine having an office job where your boss dictates that no one is allowed to have snacks at their desk and has frequently and publicly yelled at staff who bring snacks to their desk. Yet when you go into their office, you see they're always snacking at their desk. That would piss you off, right?

Well, you have regularly gone off on people for using hyperbole, tearing into them and accusing them of bad faith because of their use of hyperbole. Yet you have, by definition, been using hyperbole in recent discussion. "Pretty much no one did that" when you don't actually have data you're referencing is a very light form of hyperbole. Describing anything that isn't literally an airplane as "Stratospheric" is an extremely heavy form of hyperbole. If you really want to use some type of metaphor to describe your perspective... we're talking about skill "ceilings" as in how high the ceiling is of a building. Describing the collective stance you oppose that includes things like suggesting White Mage get 2-3 new attack spells as 30,000 feet in the air is an extreme hyperbole respective to that concept of a ceiling, because no ceiling is 30,000 feet tall, not even the damn Burj Khalifa. But maybe you would communicate your stance more fairly if you were to say something like this instead:

"Right now, every healer is a ground floor home, and I think we need some of the healers to have more floors, but all of you want every healer to be at least 2 stories tall."

Listen, I'm not saying you can't use hyperbole. Hyperbole isn't a bad thing. But people want you to be consistent. If you are going to chastise others for using hyperbole, then be consistent and don't' use it yourself. Or if you want to use it, then go ahead, but don't get on other peoples' cases when they use it too. It's all about being fair here.

[Sebazy]

No. It's not.

Yes. it is.

That's 2 threads I found whilst I was getting ready to go to work. And more importantly, that's 2 threads more than you've brought to the party.

You can prop up your ARR raid bonifieds all you like, it seems that your position was not one held by people at the time by and large, regardless of the anecdote of how many people you talked to hanging around Wineport.

So on one hand we have one person we have a hardcore healer main who was at the bleeding edge of progression right from beta. Was an active member of the EU FC chasing world prog rankings and one that made many of the most popular guides used amongst the raid scene back in the day as well as going on to make one of the most advanced tools of the time.

On the other hand we have some random who was thumbing himself in Toto Rak at the time. Brings little to nothing of value to the table outside of their 'opinion' but somehow this opinion holds more truth and value to the discussion than anything I could bring to the table. Yep, this is the one. The truth right here.

Also. Did you completely miss the part where I specifically stated that I was clarifying that this was in relation to T5?

As for your other comments, all I can say is lol. Casting Stoneskin on Caduceus? Like mid pull? Are you actually for real? WHM solo healing a tank back up to full easily with Stoneskin whilst infirmity is up? What? Medica IIing all the bad away? Do you actually remember how expensive and ballad dependant WHM was back then? Were we playing the same game here?

The Binds That Tie I
13/06/2015

Oh right.

I forgot.

You were still thumbing yourself in Toto Rak back when it was actually challenging.

I suspect the general use case was WHM/SCH since it seemed logical to the way the game was designed, and most people kind of ran with it.

Again, stop sitting there screaming 'It's not me it's everyone else!' for a second and read what I'm typing.

I'M NOT TRYING TO SUGGEST THAT DOUBLE SCH WAS THE NORM. I'M SAYING THAT IT WAS A KNOWN STRAT AND DID SEE A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF USE.

Trying to discredit me by some people disagreeing on reddit is doubly amusing, want me to link the thread where I got shadow banned off the reddit for suggesting that Eos was a DPS gain over Selene because of how misleading the haste numbers were? Needless to say, I had 0 upvotes as well. Didn't age well that one did it?

Also it's kind of funny to see you completely skip over the part where you were woefully wrong about thinking it was a late expansion thing lol. Ren is never wrong yo. 1T1H2D is still the fastest for dungeons!!1!

I look forward to your canned response of 'are you feeling ok? Do you need a cuddle?' That's your usual response at this stage isn't it?

Remember, it's not you, it's everyone else!

[Connor]

snip

It’s been ages and I still only played casually, but I remember doing Coils very early on in their lifespan too.

I even remember doing the Allagan Rot mechanic and silence duty as a Bard! Idk if I was any good but I was there lol.

But yeah I can attest to the very strange party comps that ended up doing really well. I mean, that’s where the X4 BRD comp came from that was so wild the devs are literally still terrified of Bard now lol. I do vaguely remember something about SCH/SCH being really good, especially if both were leveraging the mitigation to get maximum uptime (like rotating enhanced Eye for an Eye / Virus).

Interestingly though I wonder if the reason people enjoyed ARR’s style as opposed to the current one is because they essentially the inverse of each other. ARR was more weighted towards complexity in jobs than mechanical complexity, whereas Endwalker is the exact opposite with more mechanical complexity and none/minimal amounts for the jobs themselves. I think both have their good and bad aspects so surely the answer it somewhere in-between ‘all mechanical complexity, little/no job complexity’ or vice-versa, and not in these extremes they keep jumping too

[Sebazy]

<snip>

BRD stacking really was a powerful move for sure. My team ended up running 3 at times, it made a huge difference especially against ADS where keeping those melee up was tough work.

Interestingly though I wonder if the reason people enjoyed ARR’s style as opposed to the current one is because they essentially the inverse of each other. ARR was more weighted towards complexity in jobs than mechanical complexity, whereas Endwalker is the exact opposite with more mechanical complexity and none/minimal amounts for the jobs themselves.

That's a solid point yeah. It certainly had a lot more scope for inventive play and honestly compared to something like early WoW, I'd argue that FFXIV's wombo combo setups were less 'cancerous' to the experience (To this day, I'm glad I wasn't on the receiving end of my Invuln Mail/Green Whelp antics in vanilla WoW PvP).

I look back at silly things like healers and SMN pets tanking primals with great fondness even if they weren't remotely optimal. Now it's all optimise this and spreadsheet that. The enjoyment and mystery has obviously worn away at this stage but I can't help but feel glum that SE had a hand in accelerating the process of causing people to optimise the fun away.

[Renathras]

It's not about some sort of "gotcha!" moment. Imagine...

Except that's not what it is. And further, the desperation to make it that by some people (see Sebazy below) is evidence it's not some innocent ribbing or mild annoyance.

I "go off" on people for using hyperbole (which is usually me just saying "You're using hyperbole", hardly "tearing into them") because of how often it's used to wrongly bolst- why am I even having this discussion?

This is stupid.

I'm not going to keep entertaining this tangent that is a desperate attempt to sidetrack things. THIS is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

Yes. it is.

No, it's not. See above.

And the rest of your unhinged rant doesn't help your case.

I'M NOT TRYING TO SUGGEST THAT DOUBLE SCH WAS THE NORM. I'M SAYING THAT IT WAS A KNOWN STRAT AND DID SEE A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF USE.

They why are you even disagreeing with me?

I said WoW figured this out a decade and a half ago. Is that not so?

I pointed out in ARR FFXIV worked pretty well for this. You have some examples of a few people using it for a single encounter. You seem to be contesting me saying that people did it late in the expansion with "Well, acksually..." they did it early, except you have one case of one fight and it not being any where near universal.

If your only issue was "pretty much no one" was "well, some groups here and there", then good god, consider my prior statement amended. But it doesn't change the point:

WoW and FFXIV both figured this out a hell of a long time ago, so there's no reason we can't now. Are you going to sit here, while shitting on me, and insist that what we have right now for healer and combat design is all FFXIV can manage in the year of our lord 2023?

Because my argument was that it can do better.

That is what you're contesting while trying to one-up me with "thumbing yourself", whatever the hell THAT means.

EDIT:

My point was obvious, and you decided to latch onto a minor aside and ignore LITERALLY the entire rest of my position - including the much more interesting and pertinent discussion about support - to try to one-up me with your quip about hyperbole and trying to prove me wrong as a scrub vs your oh-so-high-and-might-amazing-hardcore-raider-from-2.1-self when we arguably AGREE on the overall situation needing change and your attempted disproving not really panning out using even your own sources to show that people disagreed with your position/agreed with mine at the time.

It's like, instead of joining hands, you picked one thing to specifically drive a thorn in my side and twist it around out of sheer spite when we could otherwise find points of agreement.

Like...WHY?

All you need to say was "Well, I did see a few groups run SCH/SCH on Twintania, but you're largely right that ARR overall had a good balance between WHM and SCH that worked in most encounters and for most players. I agree that modern FFXIV could take a page from its own past as well as WoW to make more interesting healing."

Why didn't you just...I dunno, say THAT or something like it instead?

[ty_taurus]

Except that's not what it is. And further, the desperation to make it that by some people (see Sebazy below) is evidence it's not some innocent ribbing or mild annoyance.

I "go off" on people for using hyperbole (which is usually me just saying "You're using hyperbole", hardly "tearing into them") because of how often it's used to wrongly bolst- why am I even having this discussion?

This is stupid.

I'm not going to keep entertaining this tangent that is a desperate attempt to sidetrack things. THIS is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

Except you have torn into people over it. Not every time, or even most of the time, but you play the role of hyperbole police and are quick to shove a finger in someone's face anytime you see a hyperbole that you don't like. You made a lengthy post not long ago specifically criticizing hyperbole and consequently those who use it.

Look, man, I'm trying to help you avoid getting into these fights. I'm not telling you that you can't use it, or that you're evil for doing so. I'm just saying if you are going to use it, then stop calling people out on it, otherwise it's hypocritical to always be the fastest sheriff to the draw when calling out others' use of hyperbole and then turn around to use it yourself. You can take the advice and use it to try and have healthier conversations with others, or if you like getting into constant altercations, then by all means, deny what I'm saying and ignore me.

[Renathras]

Except you have torn into people over it. Not every time, or even most of the time, but you play the role of hyperbole police and are quick to shove a finger in someone's face anytime you see a hyperbole that you don't like. You made a lengthy post not long ago specifically criticizing hyperbole and consequently those who use it.

When people are using it to form the crux of, or major bolstering to, their arguments, yes.

I appreciate you "trying to help", and genuinely believe you believe that's what you are doing (and I don't mean to be patronizing by that). But this is akin to saying "That guy who says murdering Humans is bad is murdering people. Let's all call him out on being a murderer and say how wrong he is to point out to others that murder is bad and how he needs to stop doing it!" "Who did he murder?" "He butchered out one of his chickens! He's such a murderer!"

...I know, I know "you're using an example of a thing we all know is bad"; whatever. The point is obvious, and you can accept it or quibble on the details. Either way, I'm not going to keep going with this line of reasoning.

Using hyperbole in general is not good. Using hyperbole as the crux of an argument or to falsely bolster a weak argument is bad. Using it when it's verifiably false (the recent case of "Precisely zero" being one such example). If you guys think hyperbole is bad, by all means, call me out on it - and everyone else who uses it. If you don't think it's bad, then whatever.

It's not a "healthier conversation" when people are calling me out for a thing while giving others a pass for it. Especially when most of the call-outs aren't even accurate. Or relevant.

.

But see what's happened?

Yet another case of someone deciding to deride me has derailed yet another thread.

Did her "calling me out" on that lead to a healthier conversation?

No. No it did not.

Are you going to advise her on ways to have a healthier conversation?

No. No you are not, are you?

Are you going to try to help her to avoid derailing threads and getting into these fights? Are you going to give her advice to avoid such instances in the future and to have healthier conversations with others without getting into constant altercations?

Well..I'd be thrilled if you did...but I suspect the answer is going to be you are not.

.

EDIT:

And the thing is, this is literally an aside to an aside TO AN ASIDE. It's a derail of a side conversation that has derailed the ENTIRE THREAD. And for what? What good has it done? What positive has come of it? What productive conversation are we having? What agreement are we reaching? What ideas are we exchanging?

/sigh