are WHMs hard to come by?

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

snip

You were so close that I almost spend the effort to push the Like button. But alas, no dice. Simply due to your summary. I agree on the points you made that a white mage learning curve is steeper, it's also less forgiving for dropping the ball in situations. However, I don't agree on that a white mage is a reactive healer (or should be). If anything, scholars are allowed to be more reactive than white mage simply for the fact they have Lustrate. However, a proactive scholar is more likely to spend that aetherflow stack on Energy Drain, rather than lustrate, or uses it to extend the time allowed to stay in Cleric's Stance. If a white mage is reactive, however, the heals may be late and someone dies for it - Remember I mentioned it's less forgiving?

Healing fundamentals are the same for both healers, however. Know your class, know the encounter and know the party. White Mages just have to be a bit more vigilant than scholars when it comes to healing. Luckily, healing for endgame content is never alone (bar e-peen reasons) and you can pick up each other's mistakes.

This post is very enlightening about healing in general. For both scholar and white mage: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post2369855

[Cynfael]

Unless I die I don't need to touch Energy Drain. Lustrate is more of a primary healing spell than a reactive one (like Cure II), since Adlo doesn't really heal enough to make it worth casting regularly, unless you're over geared for the content.

Energy Drain is a great DPS tool and shouldn't be overlooked when you don't have a pressing need to heal as quickly as Lustrate allows. I also wouldn't discourage people from using Adlo regularly since the Galvanize effect can be so powerful and can facilitate further assistant DPS with the time it buys you.

It's true that Physick is ideal for filling up large chunks of missing HP at low MP cost, which is helpful for certain phases of end-game raids where tanks actually get chunked now and then (or frequently and over a long period of time, like in T8), but otherwise it's just about keeping the tank shielded and topped off for as long as possible so that you can keep up DPS with minimal interruption.

[Roxinova]

I agree on the points you made that a white mage learning curve is steeper, it's also less forgiving for dropping the ball in situations.

If a white mage is reactive, however, the heals may be late and someone dies for it - Remember I mentioned it's less forgiving?

White Mages just have to be a bit more vigilant than scholars when it comes to healing.

This. I main WHM, my bf mains SCH. I can let one person die in a run and suddenly, I'm the most horrible WHM in the game who needs to be taught how to play, despite clearing a lot more content than my bf. However, he can let 3 people die in a run and gets all of the commendations. It drives me insane how hard people push WHMs.

[DreamWeaver]

Please just stop calling WHM Reactive Healers .

It's harder to play a Proactive WHM compared to a Proactive SCH, but that's no reason to label WHM as Reactive Healers.

[Velox]

I am sorry, I should have clarified. A "reactive healer" is not the same as reactive healing.

Reactive healing (verb) is a practice in which the user waits until someone has taken damage before deciding to heal them up. Situations that require reactive healing will vary (such as a player taking avoidable damage). On a scripted fight, healing is still done proactively by casting just before damage is taken, if allowed.
A "reactive healer" (noun) is a job type in which the role's functions are dictated first by whether or not someone has suffered damage. A WHM is a reactive healer because most of its healing potential can only be achieved once damage is taken. The job NEEDs damage to function. Adversely, a "proactive healer" has tools that prevent damage from occurring in the first place (what we call mitigation).

In scripted fights, a reactive healer still heals proactively.

Both WHM and SCH have some skills that favor both reactive healing and proactive healing, but for the most part a WHM is defined as a reactive healer (lacks mitigation, stronger heals) and SCH is defined as a proactive healer (has mitigation, weaker heals). Both healers must always be proactively healing scripted fights (we call this pre-casting) and reacting to unexpected damage when it occurs (post-casting). I addressed this in the line where it says, "...longer cast times that must be compensated for."

Part of what makes both healers so viable in end-game content is that 99% of it is still scripted, so both can shine. However, if SE were to ever design a true RNG fight (in which an enemy's attacks are put on individual timers instead of a rotation, and AI chooses which active ones he/she uses next) a proactive healer like SCH would be at a great disadvantage. They would simply never know when to use their mitigation spells for peak efficiency (the boss might do that raid-wide AoE now, or in 3 minutes) and this creates fights that require almost purely reactive healing. This would make WHM the stronger healer because it has traded shields for higher recovery rates. If we were to ever see these kinds of fights in the future, SE would have to completely redesign SCH and both jobs would drift so close to each other in terms of strengths/weaknesses that they would lose their identities. I know none of this is really relevant to the current game, but it's still interesting to think about.

[DreamWeaver]

@Velox,

Can I assume your mitigation is Adlo and not much on E4E (luck based + not available for every big hit) and Virus (CD related + not available for every big hit)?

If so...who says WHM do not have mitigation, we have the mighty StoneSkin!!

[Remilia_Nightfall]

Formal definitions...Velox is a pro

@ DreamWeaver, did you hear the dev team talking about maybe making Stone Skin a party-wide cast during fanfest? That would be a big boost in proactive healing potential for WHM. I seriously hope they actually do that, if only so that no one ever has to cast that spell 8 times in a row again

I hope not. AoE stoneskin would mean making Succor suddenly useless - unless you make AoE SS cost 600 MP :P