Scholars are taking over the world.

[Karyou]

Scholar was the first job I did and it will always be my main. I have always loved it. Really, though, I hate that so many people always feel the need to play what they think is "better". They should just play what they enjoy the most. SCH and WHM are so different that it really has to come down to your personal tastes. I also will be keeping Bard as my secondary class, I don't care if it's been nerfed.

I'd hate to see people actively dislike me joining a party because they are "sick" of seeing Scholars.

[Sebazy]

succor kinda sucks, dude. even succor + WD isn't anything special.

Some math for you!

WD by itself is ~1400/1600ish per target over 21 seconds on a 1 minute cooldown, however! Rouse is also on a 1 minute cool down and pushes WD up to ~2100/2500 per target with my gear, MP free on a 60 second cooldown with a single global cooldown.

To match that a whitemage would need to cast 3 medicas taking ~8 seconds to cast and costing 1116 mp.

In terms of HP per second, over 0 to 20 seconds of AE healing it's actually neck and neck. If the Sch precasts succor and gets use out of that first galvanize then it's pretty much even, if they don't then the whm pulls ahead. If the damage is delivered over multiple hits allowing the sch to get more use out of succor then the whm gets left behind.

So actually no, I disagree with your point about the disparity between whm and sch for AoE healing. Whomever comes out ontop really depends on the situation. Frequent big AE hits favour whm, lots of smaller hits or big bursts of AE spaced out over a minute or more plays to a sch more.

In closing, if you are struggling with AE as sch I can only suggest that you take a tighter rein on your fairies!

[Aphrini]

WHM for life here, never will pick up SCH either I love my Red and Whites it was so nice to see a pro WHM thread from a SCH. It made my Monday, thank you. Back at you btw I <3 my SCH partner in crime!

[jumpypuppet]

Frequent big AE hits favour whm, lots of smaller hits or big bursts of AE spaced out over a minute or more plays to a sch more.

In closing, if you are struggling with AE as sch I can only suggest that you take a tighter rein on your fairies!

thanks for the...advice... but i'm not "struggling" with anything. not sure how much more tightly i can hold the reins considering that i manually cast every single fairy skill.

and re: "who comes out on top" you just reiterated what i said. obviously given ample time to prep for a big hit, recover and then prep again, succor's shield shines. but if you looked at the examples i cited (tumults, T4 enrage) they are clearly instances of "frequent big AE hits," of which there aren't many, which is why SCH can look better by comparison. if and when mechanics like those become more prevalent in the endgame, WHMs will be sought after to fill that niche because if you're constantly getting hit with pulses succor isn't going to cut it for long, at least by comparison (not even considering that WD has a decent cooldown). that's what i was saying.

but w/e, keep nitpicking

[ApolloGenX]

I like whm... but having unlimited mps on the scholar and free fairy heals and buffs is just too nice.

Yeah, whms have larger AE heals... but I presuccor and I can still cast 3 succors in a row and hit Aetherflow and I'm good to go. I can bounce back- plus rouse. Whms? You get low on mp and you are sunk. You might have one burst or possibly two and you're on fumes.

The whm is not the versatile class it was touted to be. It's fun and definitely has perks. I like playing it... but being able to almost ignore mps is priceless.

[Sebazy]

Please note that we are unlikely to see any more end game content till 2.2 in ~3-4 months time

WHM are by far the better aoe healers

Nitpicking is perhaps a little unfair, I just disagree with the above statement of yours and feel that it is rather misguided. Really nitpicking would be pointing out that Tumults actually play to a sch's strengths, they are infrequent, predictable and of course each stomp is broken down into multiple evenly timed tumults allowing the sch the opportunity to plan ahead and really capitalise on succor. A whm can of course DS and brute force through it with medica to equal the sch but with 2.1 medica II's rather reduced HP/s it's actually pretty even now (which was likely the desired result of the change if you ask me).

T4 enrage playing to whm is more down to sch not having an equivalent to Cure III (which is fine since a sch is more suited to solo healing the tank through a likely fed dreadnought for a short period, yay for synergy!). Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not of the 'oh em gee sch are op!' stance. Quite the opposite, I think that the two jobs are rather nicely balanced and have incredible synergy with each other. Yes they both have caveats and of course there are situations where both jobs truly shine over each other, but overall it works out quite even in most situations. AoE healing included!

[Kinseykinz]

I main WHM...and I am NOT changing it simply due to 'adjustments'. But what I've noticed sitting in the 'WHM Seat' is this:
1. Party members in general are way to spread out for our heals to be effective. Especially when in a WHM/WHM group, you all need to stack more when you can (safely).
2. Cure III useage sucks...because gaining a proc for a group heal off a single target heal is just...well silly logic. The should adjust it somehow that Cure III either procs on itself and/or lower Cure III's cost a smidge and make Cure II give a spell speed/crit heal proc for a limited time across the board (sch gets a similar spell speed proc from a crit)
3. Holy is fine nothing to see here...people are STILL complaining it's too powerful, but they need to look at the risk/reward, the fact the spell has very limited usage, and the fact that it is a MP blowing monster. Basically...suck it up, let us have this one thing.
4. I miss Thunder. I miss it way more on WHM than on SMN. It was a nice DoT filler spell when i was just doing light cures
5. The virus nerf...man that sucks. Both from now basically never being able to cast it in a SCH/WHM party...but also for the amount of heals I have to do to compensate for now that only 1 virus can be cast every Min.
6. I miss Rain of Death too (again not my ability but man do I miss it).

Oh and when for the love of the 12 is the whole 'cure dropping' thing gonna be fixed. You can have the tank targeted for a good 2-3 seconds go to cast on them and STILL have the cure land on yourself instead of them...you made our windows of opportunities smaller, and our MP pool feel smaller, but you didn't fix this...kinda sucks when i have to chain cure 1-2 times just to get it to land on the tank once...if you fix nothing else, fix this.

All this adds up to making WHM feel much more difficult this patch than last patch. It might be more balanced, but it still feels more 'by the seat of your pants' than pre patch. Grant it: Party members adjusting their placement, and better party synergy in general and this eases up. (Basically, WHM's been 'gimped' enough that we can't nearly as easily over-compensate for other party members blunders now).

Oh...and SE I don't know what you were thinking with WHM in PvP...but seriously....last I checked, WHM is not a kite-tank.

[nocks]

Some math for you! (summary: Scholars have similar AE healing to WHM's)

It's similar in the same way that Benediction is similar to Lustrate, but not quite as nice. The WHM's AE healing is much more flexible, not being tied to a 1-minute cool-down and having your pet be alive. I personally think the game was designed to give WHM's an edge in AE healing, and Scholars get an edge in single-target healing. Of course, both jobs can heal either way, just one has some slight advantages.

[Sebazy]

Personally I think Cure III is our answer to Lustrate, benediction is just there so that we have an emergency button for if all else fails (hence the relatively long cd). The problem is that cure III rarely gets a chance to shine outside of properly organised static teams because lets face it, getting a typical party to stack properly can feel like herding cats! Lustrate on the other hand isn't dependant on other people so it always feels useful.

To those bashing Cure III's viability, hold your horses until you've got ifrit extreme down. I learnt to love it in the process of learning that trial.

[elrinS]

Scholar was the first job I did and it will always be my main. I have always loved it. Really, though, I hate that so many people always feel the need to play what they think is "better". They should just play what they enjoy the most. SCH and WHM are so different that it really has to come down to your personal tastes. I also will be keeping Bard as my secondary class, I don't care if it's been nerfed.

I'd hate to see people actively dislike me joining a party because they are "sick" of seeing Scholars.

Too many people get too caught up these days, they forget this is only a game. I know. I'd personally rather pick a class that I enjoy rather than advancing on something which may be more effective, but actually I think is quite boring. Every player is different. I guess I have no right to say this since you're all mostly WHM or SCH. I think both are good in their own ways, and this is coming from a PUG.
As you say, it all comes down to personal tastes.