supervirus more impactful than proshell

[AishaK]

On the ffxiv subreddit there is currently a post of a scholar solo healing bahamut prime. They did not need the whm protect to do this. They also did not need white mage's "strength" in aoe healing for this. I dont believe a white mage could solo heal this fight without a summoner for supervirus.

An important question, does astrologian actually provide a suitable replacement for the effects of ss and super virus? the card effects listed so far show one random card providing 10% damage reduction to one target, or a reduced effect on everyone if royal roaded. If this is all they have at 60 scholar will be the dominant healer for progression simply by being the strongest in mitigation.

In other words optimal groups will always be made up of sch/whm or sch/astro never whm/astro unless a summoner is tagging along.Hopefully this shows our ignorance of astrologist mitigation or virus's state in hw. Otherwise it highlights a total cluelessness of healer balance on SE's part.

[Tranquil]

WHM soloheal of T13 has been done pre-echo. Yes, it was with a SMN Supervirusing, though, I'll give you that.

AST is getting a Virus-esque ability called Disable, which will reduce the damage of the next attack by X%. I didn't see it specified whether this was for both physical and magical damage, but as they didn't specify (that I've read up on) - I am guessing it's gonna reduce both.

This ability will not likely be as good as Supervirus for all situations because it only lasts for one attack whereas a Supervirus's 10-second duration can have you reduce some further fluff damage in addition to the attack that was intended to be Virused specifically (ie. tank killers & huge AOE-damaging abilities like Gigaflares of T13). Still, for the purpose of mitigating one big bang of an attack, AST's Disable would still work. Also, we still do not know the % on that (unless new info has escaped me), but I am guessing either 10% or 15%.

Also, we won't know if that results in an Antibody-type of thing, so it can in fact be possible to have more interval-based scripted attacks mitigated than without having an AST in the party, as any Virus-users would have the target get the Antibody buff on them.

WHM's Virus will still be fine for extended physical fluff damage on adds and stuff - blowing Disable on that sounds like a waste and SCH will likely keep being the "main boss Viruser" as is now.

[Nihility]

The general feeling for a while now is scholar will be the required healer and astrologian and white mage will be fighting for the second spot.
Scholar just brings too many things to a group that other healers just can't even compare to

the only thing scholar lacked is raw healing potential and the expansion is giving them exactly that.

[AishaK]

The general feeling for a while now is scholar will be the required healer and astrologian and white mage will be fighting for the second spot.
Scholar just brings too many things to a group that other healers just can't even compare to

the only thing scholar lacked is raw healing potential and the expansion is giving them exactly that.

This is what worries me. No healing class should be king. Proshell in my opinion makes very little difference at the end of the day. Despite this its becoming global, its madness that they see proshell as a problem and ignore the elephant in the room that is 15% damage reduction for a lengthy duration along with ss its just too much. It reeks of bias towards sch.

[Risvertasashi]

The general feeling for a while now is scholar will be the required healer and astrologian and white mage will be fighting for the second spot.
Scholar just brings too many things to a group that other healers just can't even compare to

the only thing scholar lacked is raw healing potential and the expansion is giving them exactly that.

Ehm. With the new abilities, I am not even mildly concerned about WHM's future.

For content where party composition matters, you're still going to want one pure HP/S machine, and one healer that can shield. SCH will be better at raw HP/S than before, but only at the cost of their shields. AST, according to press that play tested, just doesn't have a very strong HP/S throughput (but full healing SCH + shielding AST should be viable). I'm betting that WHM will still have the strongest raw heals (and, you know, WHMs are getting lustrate and stuff).

[Sleigh]

Ehm. With the new abilities, I am not even mildly concerned about WHM's future.

For content where party composition matters, you're still going to want one pure HP/S machine, and one healer that can shield. SCH will be better at raw HP/S than before, but only at the cost of their shields. AST, according to press that play tested, just doesn't have a very strong HP/S throughput (but full healing SCH + shielding AST should be viable). I'm betting that WHM will still have the strongest raw heals (and, you know, WHMs are getting lustrate and stuff).

WHM looks to be getting some buffs, but I have to agree with Nihility, there is only one safe and secure healer in my mind and that'd be SCH.

- Supervirus, which has ranged from just regular Virus to the only thing standing between the group and death due to iLVL? Check
- Can DPS while directing very generous, unhampered heals at the boss's target? Check
- Can AoE better than half the cast of jobs by spending 7.5s and one Aetherflow to set it up for the next 20s? Check
- Adlo for general mitigation, and the ability to virtually negate the next tank killer if it crits? Check
- Selene massively boosting raid DPS for free? Check. We've dabbled in dropping SCH for solo healing in the past and it rarely pays off well, SCH DPS + Selene buffs are damn near a DPS by itself. Technically even stronger in 3.0 due to SS buffs
- If needed, completely free, strong raid heals/buffs from Eos? Check. It's hard to notice how good Whispering Dawn really is until you try solo heal SCH and realize WD usually heals the whole raid almost to full by itself, usually well before next mechanics (situational).
- 2 minute CD on Eye for an Eye, check. Anyone who actively uses this knows it's actually a big deal, and WHM/BLM have a high 3m CD on it. AST won't even get it.
- Lustrate, which oddly enough isn't even one of SCH's best strengths. I've seen it countless times, a DPS screws up a mechanic and is brought near death before another mechanic, a tank fails the CD and is left with pixels of life, the other healer is slacking ... Lustrate to the rescue.
- Possibility in 3.0 to crit Adlo the raid before a T9 Megaflare/T13 Gigaflare type of attack? Check check check

I do not know which healer will prove dominant of WHM or AST. Probably will lead to personal preference mostly, maybe WHM for progression, maybe AST for speed runs since presumably higher group DPS, who knows? But I know SCH isn't going anywhere. 2 stronk.

[Tranquil]

Agreed with Sleigh. Was gonna write something similar, but was too slow. Anyway, I do hope there's a balance between the jobs come the expansion, but I just can't see why anyone would run anything SCH-less.

Also, for SCH+AST comps, I was thinking it would make more sense to have a Diurnal Sect AST and a "normal" (shielding SCH), because you'll likely have stronger shields that way anyway. (And HoTs can be nice, something SCH doesn't have except for Whispering Dawn). AST's pure healing capabilities don't look to be bad, so why give up on stronger shields and HoTs for lesser shielding (I doubt AST will have an Adloquium up their sleeve in that stance with the crit synergy and all - but who knows, I might be proven wrong in this).

Either way, we're living some interesting times.

[Risvertasashi]

Stuff

Ehhhm... IMO you're undermining your own argument. Healing from cleric stance and using Selene? And crits are RNG. Nice when you get them but what about those tank busters where you don't get them, and now the tank is at 10% hp even after shields? You can blow lustrates but then those are gone for the next minute...

It's having a strong healing partner... like say WHM... that makes that stuff possible. Yeah lustrate's great but you can't heal raids on that alone.

Now if the SCH heal focused... that means using Eos and staying out of cleric stance... I can see it being interchangeable with WHM. As for AST, well, I'm just going off what the press that got to play test it said: It's just not that powerful, from their accounts. If a SCH wants to cleric stance, etc, they need a powerful healing partner.

Anyways, SE has been pretty good at maintaining balance. Supposing WHM does fall behind somehow... they will buff the job, as they have done for others.

[elemental10]

Does Supervirus and Disable stack?

If they do........ not a good news for WHM

But i'm guessing no.

[UOdhn]

Does Supervirus and Disable stack?

If they do........ not a good news for WHM

But i'm guessing no.

Why not? Super virus, Dragon Kick, and Storm's Path all stack.