SCH vs WHM

[Lucipurr]

WHM is better for solo healing and PvP. Sch is better for MT and buffing dps.

[Cleftobismal]

Why is this thread still alive. . . .

[DreamWeaver]

Guess I'll put in my personal 2 gil regarding WHM vs SCH as well

To Stereotype the 2 healers:
SCH = Tank healer, due to superior single target healing.
WHM = Raid healer, due to superior AoE healing.

Major Difference IMHO:
Ability to deal with RNG BS:
SCH = Sacred Soil, Virus, E4E to reduce chance of BS happening, if BS does happen, Lustrate is your answer (per minute basis).
WHM = E4E, Situational Virus (useless vs magic) to reduce change of BS happening, if BS does happen, Benediction is your answer (per 5 minute basis).

Note I did not include Stone Skin/Adlo inside the anti BS toolkits, as these 2 are only useful vs predictable BS (aka Death Sentence), for other random BS (double dread crit anyone?), Adlo will win Stone Skin due to having a heal component + pet can heal, whereas Stone Skin does not.

[Sebazy]

I begin the question just how much SCH has gotten over powered, though. Our SCH has begun sticking to Cleric Stance [ON] for about 90% of a Titan EXM fight because all he needs to do is let the fairy heal and lustrate. I heal the tank along with the fairy, keeping the tank topped off, but when big hits come he just lustrates with no need to exit Cleric Stance since it's a % of the Tank's HP.

On the contrary, I think whm are noticeably better for the majority of that trial purely because of the frequency at which those big hits come on. Use cure III/medica II efficiently with a group that can huddle properly and you may as well just swap the sch out for a proper dps. The only point I prefer being on sch is during the adds, if the tank eats a bomb just before the second mountain buster then as whm theres not a huge amount I can do beyond bene or pray, as sch I just lustrate as needed and carry on as if it never happened.

As a WHM especially in T4, I find that I usually get asked to be the one that constant heal the tank that is getting the most damage.

I also did the MT healing as whm when we were learning T4 simply due to us not knowing any better at the time and it just kind of stuck. Roll on a few months down the line with me switching to sch to get a new whm in, I'm still healing the MT and I can't begin to stress how much easier the double dreadnought phase is. As whm it was always hard work requiring both myself and the pld to hoard cool downs and the dps to get that first dreadnought down before we both ran out of steam, on sch those two clockworks might as well be a pair of south shroud squirrels, even with the bugs fed early I'm comfortably out healing the damage coming at that pld, and unlike my whm, I'm not haemorrhaging MP in the process.

Its like Red and Blue. Theyre both colors, but red looks better on some things, and has a different purpose than Blue, as blue looks better on some other things. some people prefer red over blue and vice versa. A red n blue combination make a lovely purple. Whether Blue is a support to Red or the other way around, they need both to make that color.

But please, dont think Red is better than blue.

Thread won, gg!

[Ghasto]

I wonder if anyone who says "SCH+SCH is bad" has actually ever tried it in content that matters, like Coil.

Turn 1 is just double tank heals, double SCH is easily the best healing approach to this.
Turn 2 is tank heals with light forced AOE damage, SCH can more than handle it with its fairy alone.
Turn 4 is, again, mostly just tank heals, unless you hit emergency mode.
Turn 5 is a joke with dual-SCH, Infirmity makes sure of that.

[Sanguisio]

lol these threads make me giggle.

WHM - Serious Gods at AOE healing and reactive healing
SCH - Gods at mitigation, dps and turret healing

Neither one is that much better than the other, both are good to have in a party.

Kill this thread, before some more misinformed elitists spread their nonsense.

[Velox]

I think the biggest problem is that WHM weakness is being pointed out more simply by people playing the game. Every fight in FFXIV is scripted, that's a given. At some point everyone will know the fight (with a static this comes sooner rather than later). It eventually boils down to a point where there's no NEED for a "reactive" healer like WHM because people know what to dodge and when to dodge it. Nothing is unexpected outside of the occasional crit. SCH is MORE than qualified to heal after this point because, as Sanguisio stated above like many others, they are kings of party mitigation with shields and a wide array of buffs and debuffs. Tanks receive 99% of all the damage from all the bosses in this game, and SCH excel at ST healing.

In another thread I stated that, yes WHM/SCH is a powerful healing team for most content (you'd have to be stupid to not realize that)...but once you have a decent static with players who know how to work together, SCH/SCH is a much more powerful combo in end-game fights, especially Coil. That's because this game has mechanics that favor mitigation over brute forcing. Prime example is the whole PLD vs WAR argument pre-2.1. WAR could not compete on the same level as PLD because their skill set favored brute force recovery over mitigation, and because FFXIV mechanics make mitigation more powerful than brute-force recovery, WAR were often rejected from parties in favor of PLD/PLD combos. WHM is suffering from a similar problem right now, though not quite as extreme as WAR. Like WAR, they rely on brute force recovery....but we are in a game which favors mitigation for end-game content. One could argue that WHM would have to start stepping on SCH feet more in order to provide the same level of support, similar to how WAR moved closer to PLD mitigation in 2.1. It's either that, or change the mechanics of these end-game boss fights to punish the party more than the tank so that WHM has an important role. I'm more in favor of the latter, as I'd hate to see more classes blended together into hybrids.

In current FFXIV, with existing boss mechanics, there is only 1 scenario in which WHM's strength really shows...fights in which everyone is new. With everyone new, all damage is "unexpected" and thus, reactive healing is equally as important as mitigation. So now the question is, what can be done with FFXIV to create fights that replicate this kind of need for some necessary reactive healing?
SE would need to create more unscripted fights that rely on sophisticated boss AI. In such fights, damage patterns would be non-existant and sudden heavy AoE damage can come at a moment's notice, requiring the entire party to be healed from 10% to 100% HP in seconds because the next huge AoE spam-fest could happen immediately after (or not...that's the joy of random AI).

This will be my only post on the matter as far as this thread goes, as I've covered pretty much everything above. I have other posts in these forums that delve into this more and I don't want to repeat myself too much.

[Hitome]

Eloquently stated, Velox. I thought for sure that I had conveyed this idea in previous posts but am glad your post focused entirely on the concept of reactivity.

It's easy to label WHM as inferior compared to SCH when you have a static group of people, know each others' playstyles, and everyone dodges 95% of the time.

When you start PUGing content, though, then it's time to bust out the WHM.

[Gurpsmeister]

Honestly this battle will go on forever and ever and ever.

It all boils down to opinion and what you like best. Neither one is bad at anything and both very capable of doing everything. The difference is in use and the people you're using it with. I know my coil crew just recently lost probably one of the best sch I've ever seen and we replaced him with a WHM and all anyone says in our coil runs is wow this feels so much smoother / faster now. We had a hard time with titan ex with SCH, aced it with 2x whm. This isn't to say it's fact, truth, gospel, or absolute. Just what seems to be working for one group. Some groups say "wow SCH / SCH is absolutely the best and most amazing thing ever!" Grats to them, it works and they get the job done. Two WHM can get the job done, a mix of each can get the job done, two SCH can get the job done.

Debating made up numbers and opinions is well..it's guna keep us all in here arguing the same useless points over and over again.