WHM or SCH for you..?

[Blueyes]

For me, it's White Mage all the way. Scholar feels like a very lazy job in comparison, with the fairy basically taking over 50% of the healing duty.

It's only lazy for people who want to play it lazy. If a Scholar were to fully utilize all the tools available to them the job can be incredibly active. Their excellent ability to multitask is what keeps me on my toes.

[Cynfael]

It's only lazy for people who want to play it lazy. If a Scholar were to fully utilize all the tools available to them the job can be incredibly active. Their excellent ability to multitask is what keeps me on my toes.

Bingo, someone else gets it This is actually why lazy SCHs bug me so much, because the class has enormous potential that I hate to see wasted. Just because a lazy SCH can be more easily tolerated than a lazy WHM doesn't mean that a SCH shouldn't use every tool in their box. Not taking advantage of all of the SCH's powers and flexibility is like using a gaming PC to play Solitaire.

[Lemuria]

It's only lazy for people who want to play it lazy. If a Scholar were to fully utilize all the tools available to them the job can be incredibly active. Their excellent ability to multitask is what keeps me on my toes.

It really isn't though. Utilizing 'all the tools' just means casting DoTs in the interim. Unless you're wasting time and MP with overcures, once your dots are up, there's literally nothing for you to do as a Scholar. Many of the secondary skills are all instant cast too, so again, there's not really much interaction there either.

White Mage DPS, on the other hand, relies on repeat casting of spells rather than fire and forget. Sure, we get some DoT's, but Stone II is a solid DPS spell. Scholar gets Ruin, sure, but it's considerably weaker so most of their damage still comes from DoT. Tell me again why Scholar isn't a 'lazy' job...

[Kelya]

Personnaly I play both a lot and I find them cool in all cases.

But the fact is, IMO, SCH is too easy. Not in the way it's too easy to learn but in the way that, when you learned it very well, everything becomes easy. Even if it's not the way to go, if sometimes you find yourself being completly spamming your spells (Galvanize mainly), you won't ever get any MP issues because either Galvanize MP cost is too low or Aether Flow MP is too much/CD is too quick. On the contrary, WHM cannot afford to spam like this, even 10s of bad utilities of his spells can have big issues later on the fight. I mean, the mastered WHM has a very little treshold with Mistakes. The SCH, once you mastered it, has not, or very very less (assuming you understood how to manage your MP and your stacks).

I'm not saying the SCH is overpowered and he can prevent from getting any wipe, but there is a difference quite noticable on the constraints between these two jobs once you know them and play them on the same contents.

Feeling this, I just feel WHM more challenging, more difficult and it applies in more fights, more contents. Not to add the overheal/threat you need to take care more than with the SCH.

WHM I find it more aleatory and versatile. You have several way to heal, a lot of options. When there is a specific mecanic of the fight, you can choose between 4 way to go sometimes, whereas SCH will focus on the approximatively same gameplay : Galvanize/Physick (whose ratio depends on ppl and fights), your fairy, your stacks. When I try to play in a different way, I face to obstacles very quick with SCH, as if there were so much limits, due to the effectivness of some spells and the less effectivness of some others. Same for the gear, WHM gameplay is not affected by one stat particularly whearas SCH is completly axed on Critical rate, meaning if you go away from it, you have a lot of chance to loose effectivness of the job.

Sure the SCH got a fairy to take care, but except the healing spell (that is most of the time combined with a macro) the others spells are CD of 30s - 60s - 120s, which is very long. In most of the fights, when I assume everyone go as SCH/WHM team, it won't be difficult to heal and use your fairy at the same time. I know on Solo content SCH, the "difficult" part of the job can show itself though.

[Cynfael]

Snip

- Crit may be meta for SCH (with some strong justification), but it's not somehow a limitation. There's not exactly a huge pool of viable options for healer secondary stats.

- Solo content is actually where SCH is at its laziest and most OP. There is no solo content that you can't practically sleep through and still complete as SCH. Of course, in any content with swarms of low-HP adds, a WHM's Holy is an extremely efficient win .

[Kelya]

- Solo content is actually where SCH is at its laziest and most OP. There is no solo content that you can't practically sleep through and still complete as SCH. Of course, in any content with swarms of low-HP adds, a WHM's Holy is an extremely efficient win .

Hum, not sure to understand, by Solo content I mean Solo healing HL content as SCH, not solo content as FATE or quests.

[Cynfael]

Hum, not sure to understand, by Solo content I mean Solo healing HL content as SCH, not solo content as FATE or quests.

I see what you mean. In that case I'd say WHM has the advantage if the party takes a lot of unnecessary damage (e.g. if people can't dodge properly in Titan Ex). SCH has the advantage if heavy tank healing is all that's needed. Otherwise they're equally capable.

[Cynfael]

White Mage DPS, on the other hand, relies on repeat casting of spells...

And hard-casting Stone II with a couple of Aeros is supposed to be less lazy than managing SCH DoTs? Because hitting the same button over and over is more challenging?

Granted, neither mode of DPS is what anyone should consider difficult, but really.... Just because WHM doesn't have quite as varied a toolbox as SCH doesn't somehow make it more challenging to play. WHM is extremely easy and straight-forward to pick up, but takes skill to play well in end-game content; SCH is easy to get by with through most content, but it takes skill and planning to play to its maximum potential, or it becomes a weak WHM with an auto-healing pet.

[Rydia13]

And hard-casting Stone II with a couple of Aeros is supposed to be less lazy than managing SCH DoTs? Because hitting the same button over and over is more challenging? WHM is extremely easy and straight-forward to pick up, but takes skill to play well in end-game content

I think that the point that was trying to be made was that it takes more skill from a player to be an excellent, multitasking WHM. It comes pretty easily for SCH. My main is SMN and trust me, keeping an eye on DoTs while I'm free to do other things isn't too hard. WHM has to stance dance A LOT more than SCH to be as effective when it comes to DPS output because we simply cannot stay Cleric Stanced and still hand out cures like candy. WHM is easy to play if all you do is cure spam, but to do what SCH does, you need someone with know-how to be playing WHM.

[Cynfael]

I think that the point that was trying to be made was that it takes more skill from a player to be an excellent, multitasking WHM. It comes pretty easily for SCH. My main is SMN and trust me, keeping an eye on DoTs while I'm free to do other things isn't too hard. WHM has to stance dance A LOT more than SCH to be as effective when it comes to DPS output because we simply cannot stay Cleric Stanced and still hand out cures like candy. WHM is easy to play if all you do is cure spam, but to do what SCH does, you need someone with know-how to be playing WHM.

I see the point, but I don't agree that DPSing as WHM takes more skill. The principle remains the same; it's just that SCH are able to DPS more often and more consistently due to how their mechanics work. Neither way of doing it is particularly challenging or particularly lazy. It's what the player makes of it.