What is the be Healer?

[VanilleFang]

maths

Those were a lot of numbers to get through, but very nice work. I'm not entirely surprised by the findings. This isn't even taking into consideration the amount of damage the SCH would/could be mitigating. It's a bit disheartening as a WHM!

[vigioX-Sun]

I don't believe there is such thing as "best healer" since every job can perform outstanding..is more about who you feel better with, my advice is to get them all honestly an from there you can feel who fits best for you, so far my choice is WHM as favorite healer.

[DarkmoonVael]

ET is a cooldown that works in a completely different way when compared to Divine Seal or Assize. Emergency Tactics transforms Succor into a heal comparable to Medica and Adloquium into a heal comparable to Cure II (when it doesn't crit, of course). If Succor, with its built in shield, worked like a regular heal, there would be no point in being able to use Emergency Tactics with it. That fact alone proves that Succor is different than Medica/Helios and it also proves that ET does not make Succor a stronger spell (it makes Succor a different spell); Divine Seal, on the other hand, enhances all healing spells and is a completely different cooldown. Using Divine Seal and then casting a Cure doesn't prevent you from using it with Regen. Using Emergency Tactics with Succor puts the skill in a cooldown and, for the next 30s, you can't use Succor to get the same effect as Medica or to transform your Adlo in something comparable to Cure II. That's how SCH works: a healing decision either reduces the amount of other actions you can take or prevents you from doing any other actions for a set duration. WHM doesn't have this kind of restrictions, and this is one of the reasons why it's stronger in healing. A job having weaknesses doesn't mean it's bad; weaknesses have to be designed, they're not flaws. And again: ET merely gives the SCH something the other two healers have all the time, so it's not empowering at all. It's a gap filler. Deny that all you want, it's not going to change anything.

Also, saying that Embrace has 300 potency but scales less it's equivalent to saying it has a real potency of 200. Semantics won't change that and clinging to the tooltip is not going to make that skill stronger. Embrace is comparable to a Regen nowadays, unless you burn a cooldowm to Rouse your fairy for a short duration. I don't know why SCHs are trying to cover that up; it's not needed.

You really dont seem to understand the nuances of scholar in the slightest. Emergency + Adlo is not the new SCH cure II. Physick + embrace has always been and always will be the "equivalent" of cure II and benefic II. Its a sad state of events when you seem to completely ignore how the fairy is used by a SCH. Also, as you seem to think only manage your fairy through macros (as stated in a previous post), i would have imagined you were going to actually engage with the reality of how a SCH heals (its not through macroing fairy heal + sch heals in one, as this is one of the worst thing a raid SCH can do), but should have lead way to you actually understanding that SCH usually isnt healing with physick or adlo but with physick + embrace, adlo + embrace, succor + whispering dawn. So in reality, where every one elses arguments are based, you now have to consider Emergency + Adlo + Embrace and tell me how this, as you are quite badly arguing all the time, is the equivalent of cure II or Benefic II.

You also completely ignore the entire skillset of the SCH constantly and consistently, showing a very low understanding of this class. AOE healing has more choices on SCH than you portray, with Indomnibility, pre-cast succor, deployed adlo, emergency succor, whispering dawn being available. There is no situation in game that would require all of these. There is no situation in game that requires more than Meadica II>medica>medica or A.Helios>Helios>Helios to deal with for aoe damage. A SCH can match that healing output for aoe damage, and can infact prevent a fair portion of the damage occuring in the first place. Your arguments are not only disingenuous, but are highly biased, do not reflect reality and do not stand up to scrutiny.

You want to single out Emergency Tactics for some really bizarre reason, one that cant be explained other than "i dont want to consider it" then go on to complain that other point out if you are going to completely ignore the effects that in healers cooldown has on the healing capabilities, then the same can be applied to others. Your "explaination" of why a short CD can be ignored whilst the longer CD other healers cant be ignored seems to be "just because i said so". You want to take a central part of SCH healing kit out of the equation, then do it uniformly across all the healers. You take Emergency Tactics out of the equation, then bye bye collective Unconscious and assize. However, unlike you, i acknowledge these exist and dont see a reason to pretend they dont.

The fact that you can not fathom how a SCH functions with the fairy and Emergency Tactics is amusing.

EDIT: emergency tactics does not prevent SCH using spells like you claim, also WHM is prevented from doing what it wants all the time by something very important: mana.

[TatoRazzino]

You really dont seem to understand the nuances of scholar in the slightest. Emergency + Adlo is not the new SCH cure II. Physick + embrace has always been and always will be the "equivalent" of cure II and benefic II. Its a sad state of events when you seem to completely ignore how the fairy is used by a SCH. Also, as you seem to think only manage your fairy through macros (as stated in a previous post), i would have imagined you were going to actually engage with the reality of how a SCH heals (its not through macroing fairy heal + sch heals in one, as this is one of the worst thing a raid SCH can do), but should have lead way to you actually understanding that SCH usually isnt healing with physick or adlo but with physick + embrace, adlo + embrace, succor + whispering dawn. So in reality, where every one elses arguments are based, you now have to consider Emergency + Adlo + Embrace and tell me how this, as you are quite badly arguing all the time, is the equivalent of cure II or Benefic II.

You also completely ignore the entire skillset of the SCH constantly and consistently, showing a very low understanding of this class. AOE healing has more choices on SCH than you portray, with Indomnibility, pre-cast succor, deployed adlo, emergency succor, whispering dawn being available. There is no situation in game that would require all of these. There is no situation in game that requires more than Meadica II>medica>medica or A.Helios>Helios>Helios to deal with for aoe damage. A SCH can match that healing output for aoe damage, and can infact prevent a fair portion of the damage occuring in the first place. Your arguments are not only disingenuous, but are highly biased, do not reflect reality and do not stand up to scrutiny.

You want to single out Emergency Tactics for some really bizarre reason, one that cant be explained other than "i dont want to consider it" then go on to complain that other point out if you are going to completely ignore the effects that in healers cooldown has on the healing capabilities, then the same can be applied to others. Your "explaination" of why a short CD can be ignored whilst the longer CD other healers cant be ignored seems to be "just because i said so". You want to take a central part of SCH healing kit out of the equation, then do it uniformly across all the healers. You take Emergency Tactics out of the equation, then bye bye collective Unconscious and assize. However, unlike you, i acknowledge these exist and dont see a reason to pretend they dont.

The fact that you can not fathom how a SCH functions with the fairy and Emergency Tactics is amusing.

EDIT: emergency tactics does not prevent SCH using spells like you claim, also WHM is prevented from doing what it wants all the time by something very important: mana.

Embrace + Physick add to similar potency than a Cure + Regen or a Benefic + Aspected Benefic. It doesn't match the healing output of Cure II or Benefic II, unless you Rouse it or unless you're considering the tooltip potency to add both spells to 700 potency when your fairy healing output is not that of an actual 300 potency heal. If you're seriously claiming that using your fairy to add something that's very similar to healing over time effect + basic heal is equivalent to a stronger built-in GCD heal, it means you're underestimating the value of having a GCD built in second tier heal (Cure II/Benefic II). Your ET + Adlo + Embrace adds up to what exactly? An output that matches an 800 heal (not 900, because we're talking about healing done not adding up potencies from the tooltip) every 30s (unless it crits, but RNG), which both WHM and Diurnal AST have available all the time without even needing a cooldown. That's the point.

You point out Indomitability, but you forget to say that it uses a stack, which lowers the amount of Lustrates you can use. Some people were claiming here that SCH was better because they can spam Lustrates. They can, but then they lose a 400 potency AoE heal. I have absolutely no idea why you're denying that, since stack management is the core of the job you play - and the most fun aspect of it in my opinion. And then again: WHMs can reach more than what you reach with Indomitability by using Cure III, as it was pointed out in here.

My discussion was never around being able to reach the potency or not, but around the fact that, to reach those potencies, your good and skilled SCH had to burn three cooldowns (you mentioned three of them yourself) while a WHM can do it with their GCD alone and by using less GCDs. Potency is not what makes a main healer better at the job, it's the ability to react to situations no matter what decisions you have done before - if you burned ANY of those cooldowns shortly before, for any reason, you won't be able to react to a situation as easily as a WHM can. To be able to even out (or even pass) what a WHM can do, a SCH has to know the fight (you said so yourself about precasting), which you don't when content is launched. A good example of this is the difference between Asylum and Collective Unconscious in healing. Asylum heals for less than Collective Unconscious, but the logs point out that its healing output is higher. That happens because WHM's can burn Asylum more freely than ASTs can do it with CU since Asylum is a pure healing skill that is not tied to anything else. CU has to be saved to add mitigation and healing after big bursts. The fact that a WHM can have Cure III available at all times to heal big burst situations is what allows them to use Asylum the way they do. The same can be applied to SCH: if you have to burn an extra stack for any reason, it may throw off your entire rotation. This is a setback. Does learning the fight help you with it? Of course, but it doesn't make SCH a better healer in all contexts.

The OP asked about the best healer, and I argued from start that this discussion requires context. People were arguing that SCHs were being added to end game progressions groups because of their healing skills. That is false. If you want security in healing, you're adding a WHM to the party, because they have the best reacting toolkit in the game. Are you going to deny that when you just stated yourself that you need to precast things, have Eos available (which reduces the overall DPS/Utility Selene brings), and have at least one stack available to match (or pass by a small margin) what WHMs do with their GCD alone? If you can't see that having to make a list of choices and priorities is a core component of SCH's basic healing toolkit, then there's no point in discussing anything with you.

I never ignored Emergency Tactics. I brought the cooldown up several times. You were inflating what it does, as you are with the fairy healing output. You claim that ET does not prevent a SCH from using any other spells, like I claimed. I may have not made my point clear. What I mean is, once you use ET to burst heal with either Succor or Adlo, you can't do it again until it's out of cooldown. It means that, if you find yourself in any emergency situation that required you to use it to heal unexpected damage, you may not have it to use it when you were planning to. The same is true for stacks.

Want an example? A1S, if any missiles hit the floor; it's rare nowadays, but it may happen. WHM/AST can spam heals and then deal with MP management in different ways. SCH's may not be able to do that if they have used ET/Stacks before. What I'm pointing out is: WHM and ASTs don't need cooldowns to do that, SCHs do. Spamming Succor doesn't help, because once the shielding is applied the spell is worth only 150 potency, and if that shield fades away before the next AoE damage comes, it's wasted.

If you want to mention all cooldowns available to WHM/AST, then let's do it. You're not going to like the result. In another thread, people started arguing about MP Management (WHM versus AST). WHM was beating AST by a margin of 3K extra MP, but in the calculation they ignored a few tricks AST can do. When those things were pointed out, the table flipped and WHM started losing by way more than 3K MP. Since the majority of the SCH's cooldowns you mentioned and the smart combinations you pointed out are used to match the natural potency of WHM, adding Assize, Tetra, Benediction, Divine Seal, Presence of Mind and Asylum will flip the table in an unpleasant way for SCHs when placed in reactive contexts (which is the actual context of a fight).

And finally, about WHM being restricted by MP: all healers are. SCHs can be drained out of MP easily if they don't know the fight and have to do extra precasting of their shielding spells because they don't know when damage is coming. The only reason SCHs don't struggle more with MP/stack management while learning an 8-people raid is because they're usually paired with a WHM that takes the healing burden away from the off-healer with their (I'll say it again) very good reactive toolkit - which is not matched even by AST. Also, WHM's also have means to refresh MP; you make it seems like WHM (or even AST) struggles with a 11-12 K MP pool (which is what we had when Savage was launched), when in fact we were finishing fights or pulls with more than 7K to spare.

Being "equal" or "slightly better" in main healing when fights are well learned is meaningless. This is the actual point that someone started when they said that SCHs need to get out of their high horses or something like that. SCH is being overestimated and its healing output is being inflated by the SCH mains that are posting here, which is sad because the job does not require any of that since it's amazing no matter what. The point I have been trying to make is:

WHM: is the best reactive healer, with the strongest toolkit built into the GCD. It's the safest healer, with no strings attached to skills that prevent them from doing high potency healing. DPS output can be high, but it's all related to accuracy.

AST: has a very decent toolkit built into the GCD. It's not the safest healer, but it can support the party in several ways while keeping its healing capabilities. It doesn't have a very strong DPS toolkit, but its DoTs are very strong and bypass accuracy checks.

SCH: is the strongest healer in DPS output. It has a wide number of healing tools, but they're tied to a master mechanic that requires management and their more advanced healing spells require precasting to be effective. Their party utility and support toolkit is not available all the time, because it depends on the fairy they're using.

They're all good, they're all amazing in what they do, they all get the job done in all contexts, they're not necessary in any way to clear any content, and they're not better than each other in all aspects. You're going to miss something no matter what you choose. The reason why the WHM/SCH combo was being favored is because it's the most balanced; you get the best main healer and the best off-healer when you don't know the context of the fights. The problem that I see now is that fights were not designed to favor other combinations or even to allow progression with any combination (like SCH main healing and AST off-healing). That can change if they design fights that add more value to AST's toolkit; then we're going to see which of the other two is going to be dropped. My bet is that SCH will keep its spot, because of its off-healing strength. But again, that doesn't make them the best healer.

[Houston009]

Denial*

Just leave this person be, he/she'll never understand.

[TatoRazzino]

Just leave this person be, he/she'll never understand.

Yes, because I'm the one denying things.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Yes, because I'm the one denying things.

You may be. Remind us how the encounters were catered to Scholars again?

[Houston009]

You may be. Remind us how the encounters were catered to Scholars again?

Well he did mention:

SCH's deployed shields weren't needed in A1S and A2S even at launch. I know because I cleared those fights with a WHM partner running AST in Diurnal before ilvl was inflated.

For A3S, the mechanic that supposedly requires shielding is Cascade, and you can't deploy Adlo for every single Cascade in A3S, so if this kind of shielding was needed the fight would be unbeatable. The only shielding you can keep up for all Cascades is Succor and the amount of shielding provided by Succor is slightly inferior to what is provided by Aspected Helios (by 7 potency, I know, but since we decided to split hairs in here, I'll give you that).

I can't vouch for A4S, but since there have been clears with Noct. AST instead of SCH, it's pretty much a given that Deployed Adlo is not required in there.

Deployed shields aren't needed in Thordan as well, since I cleared that fight with WHM/Noct. AST.

Also, a Deployed Shield is not going to save a fight going south unless you expect a Crit Adlo, which is RNG. If that was needed, fights would be unbeatable and no one in their right mind brings a SCH expecting crit Adlos. SCHs are used for their sustained DPS, NOT for their healing capabilities. A 300 potency shield (that's the value you have to expect from a Deployed Adlo) is not that different from a Noct. Aspected Helios enhanced by Synastry: 165+20%=198[lol], and a 102 difference is less than 1K HP; if your party is wiping because of that, you have bigger problems, too big for shields to handle.

Being needed is different than being helpful, never forget that.[lol]

But I love this quote(not related to above; just showing love):

In all seriousness though.... If you compare SCH to the other healers at any level you will generally come to the conclusion that SCH makes everything easier and safer.

[DarkmoonVael]

Embrace + Physick add to similar potency than a Cure + Regen or a Benefic + Aspected Benefic. It doesn't match the healing output of Cure II or Benefic II, unless you Rouse it or unless you're considering the tooltip potency to add both spells to 700 potency when your fairy healing output is not that of an actual 300 potency heal. If you're seriously claiming that using your fairy to add something that's very similar to healing over time effect + basic heal is equivalent to a stronger built-in GCD heal, it means you're underestimating the value of having a GCD built in second tier heal (Cure II/Benefic II). Your ET + Adlo + Embrace adds up to what exactly? An output that matches an 800 heal (not 900, because we're talking about healing done not adding up potencies from the tooltip) every 30s (unless it crits, but RNG), which both WHM and Diurnal AST have available all the time without even needing a cooldown. That's the point.

You point out Indomitability, but you forget to say that it uses a stack, which lowers the amount of Lustrates you can use. Some people were claiming here that SCH was better because they can spam Lustrates. They can, but then they lose a 400 potency AoE heal. I have absolutely no idea why you're denying that, since stack management is the core of the job you play - and the most fun aspect of it in my opinion. And then again: WHMs can reach more than what you reach with Indomitability by using Cure III, as it was pointed out in here.

My discussion was never around being able to reach the potency or not, but around the fact that, to reach those potencies, your good and skilled SCH had to burn three cooldowns (you mentioned three of them yourself) while a WHM can do it with their GCD alone and by using less GCDs. Potency is not what makes a main healer better at the job, it's the ability to react to situations no matter what decisions you have done before - if you burned ANY of those cooldowns shortly before, for any reason, you won't be able to react to a situation as easily as a WHM can. To be able to even out (or even pass) what a WHM can do, a SCH has to know the fight (you said so yourself about precasting), which you don't when content is launched. A good example of this is the difference between Asylum and Collective Unconscious in healing. Asylum heals for less than Collective Unconscious, but the logs point out that its healing output is higher. That happens because WHM's can burn Asylum more freely than ASTs can do it with CU since Asylum is a pure healing skill that is not tied to anything else. CU has to be saved to add mitigation and healing after big bursts. The fact that a WHM can have Cure III available at all times to heal big burst situations is what allows them to use Asylum the way they do. The same can be applied to SCH: if you have to burn an extra stack for any reason, it may throw off your entire rotation. This is a setback. Does learning the fight help you with it? Of course, but it doesn't make SCH a better healer in all contexts.

The OP asked about the best healer, and I argued from start that this discussion requires context. People were arguing that SCHs were being added to end game progressions groups because of their healing skills. That is false. If you want security in healing, you're adding a WHM to the party, because they have the best reacting toolkit in the game. Are you going to deny that when you just stated yourself that you need to precast things, have Eos available (which reduces the overall DPS/Utility Selene brings), and have at least one stack available to match (or pass by a small margin) what WHMs do with their GCD alone? If you can't see that having to make a list of choices and priorities is a core component of SCH's basic healing toolkit, then there's no point in discussing anything with you.

I never ignored Emergency Tactics. I brought the cooldown up several times. You were inflating what it does, as you are with the fairy healing output. You claim that ET does not prevent a SCH from using any other spells, like I claimed. I may have not made my point clear. What I mean is, once you use ET to burst heal with either Succor or Adlo, you can't do it again until it's out of cooldown. It means that, if you find yourself in any emergency situation that required you to use it to heal unexpected damage, you may not have it to use it when you were planning to. The same is true for stacks.

Want an example? A1S, if any missiles hit the floor; it's rare nowadays, but it may happen. WHM/AST can spam heals and then deal with MP management in different ways. SCH's may not be able to do that if they have used ET/Stacks before. What I'm pointing out is: WHM and ASTs don't need cooldowns to do that, SCHs do. Spamming Succor doesn't help, because once the shielding is applied the spell is worth only 150 potency, and if that shield fades away before the next AoE damage comes, it's wasted.

If you want to mention all cooldowns available to WHM/AST, then let's do it. You're not going to like the result. In another thread, people started arguing about MP Management (WHM versus AST). WHM was beating AST by a margin of 3K extra MP, but in the calculation they ignored a few tricks AST can do. When those things were pointed out, the table flipped and WHM started losing by way more than 3K MP. Since the majority of the SCH's cooldowns you mentioned and the smart combinations you pointed out are used to match the natural potency of WHM, adding Assize, Tetra, Benediction, Divine Seal, Presence of Mind and Asylum will flip the table in an unpleasant way for SCHs when placed in reactive contexts (which is the actual context of a fight).

And finally, about WHM being restricted by MP: all healers are. SCHs can be drained out of MP easily if they don't know the fight and have to do extra precasting of their shielding spells because they don't know when damage is coming. The only reason SCHs don't struggle more with MP/stack management while learning an 8-people raid is because they're usually paired with a WHM that takes the healing burden away from the off-healer with their (I'll say it again) very good reactive toolkit - which is not matched even by AST. Also, WHM's also have means to refresh MP; you make it seems like WHM (or even AST) struggles with a 11-12 K MP pool (which is what we had when Savage was launched), when in fact we were finishing fights or pulls with more than 7K to spare.

Being "equal" or "slightly better" in main healing when fights are well learned is meaningless. This is the actual point that someone started when they said that SCHs need to get out of their high horses or something like that. SCH is being overestimated and its healing output is being inflated by the SCH mains that are posting here, which is sad because the job does not require any of that since it's amazing no matter what. The point I have been trying to make is:

WHM: is the best reactive healer, with the strongest toolkit built into the GCD. It's the safest healer, with no strings attached to skills that prevent them from doing high potency healing. DPS output can be high, but it's all related to accuracy.

AST: has a very decent toolkit built into the GCD. It's not the safest healer, but it can support the party in several ways while keeping its healing capabilities. It doesn't have a very strong DPS toolkit, but its DoTs are very strong and bypass accuracy checks.

SCH: is the strongest healer in DPS output. It has a wide number of healing tools, but they're tied to a master mechanic that requires management and their more advanced healing spells require precasting to be effective. Their party utility and support toolkit is not available all the time, because it depends on the fairy they're using.

They're all good, they're all amazing in what they do, they all get the job done in all contexts, they're not necessary in any way to clear any content, and they're not better than each other in all aspects. You're going to miss something no matter what you choose. The reason why the WHM/SCH combo was being favored is because it's the most balanced; you get the best main healer and the best off-healer when you don't know the context of the fights. The problem that I see now is that fights were not designed to favor other combinations or even to allow progression with any combination (like SCH main healing and AST off-healing). That can change if they design fights that add more value to AST's toolkit; then we're going to see which of the other two is going to be dropped. My bet is that SCH will keep its spot, because of its off-healing strength. But again, that doesn't make them the best healer.

There is a serious and clear distinction between upfront healing that embrace + physick give vs cure + regen and benefic + aspected benefic. Frontloaded healing is remarkably different in form and functionailty than lower frontloaded + HOT. Physick + embrace has the same functionality as Cure II and Benefic II as well as the benefit of being able to split it across targets. Saying that physick + embrace = cure + regen is quite frankly absurd. Also where is this 800 potency heal that WHM and AST have on a single GCD that you are now trying to claim? For someone that is arguing about GCD helaing, i would have thought you would have understood the difference in frontloaded GCD healing vs lower frontloaded healing + hot.

Stack management: i havent actually talked about this at all. Why is it you are now claiming i am denying that SCH have to manage stacks when i havent even talked about this at all? How is it that i am denying something that i just havent talked about? Its getting absurd when you are resorting to this. SCH manage stacks, its part of their cooldowns, however you keep curtailing the discussion about cooldown management, making it a negative attribute, according to you, about SCH and a positive one for WHM and AST. Same principle applies to all three healers. All three have various cooldowns and resources to manage, not just SCH.

In regards to the discussion, your argument has always been that SCH can not reach those potencies. Need we bring up your statement that SCH has no GCD that goes above 150 healing potency? A statement that you have yet to address, even when asked by others for clarification. Potency throughput has also been mapped out by another forum user, and its far closer between SCH and WHM than many seemed to think.

And now we get to your statement that SCH are only brought into raids because of dps and not healing skill. This really, more than anything, shows how little you understand about the healing classes, the meta and raiding in general. SCH are brought into the fights because they have the best reactive helaing spells in the game. Not WHM, but SCH. Reactive based healing, which is a topic most serious end game raids will say only exists when learning and when mistakes are made, is based entirly around the ability to respond fast to situation. Lustrate and indomnibility are the core of the reactive based healing toolset that is brought into a raid. They have restriction via stack management. The WHM equivalents have restrictions based on cooldown times and modal usage via assize, which has an inbuilit modal ability akin to emergency tactics usage in regards to the actual decision the heal has to make on how and why to use said ability. AST is in a weird position with reactive spells with having essential dignity as its main spell and A.Ben and Ben II procs acting as a psudo-emergency heal. However, you are quite deluded if you think SCH have a secure spot in raids JUST due to DPS. They have a fairy that heals and can be commanded when in clerics without penalty, they have the best emergency responses to heal situation that need responding to asap and they have the ability to mitigate the most damage out of all the healers. Triage healing, mitigation and dps is what a raid SCH is about. There are three things on that list of equal importance, not just dps.

In regards to WHM reactive healing style, lets have a talk about how a WHM functions in a raid group. The good whm times their heals to land just after the damage hits people, this is more akin to a WHM having a healing counter-rotation to the bosses rotation. It is scripted. It diverts slightly with crits and people getting hit by the things they shouldnt. When people do get hit by things they shouldnt, then that when reactive healing comes into play. Who deals with this? Well usually the SCH or the AST who isnt helaing the main tank at that point in time.
The bad WHM is the reactive healer, waits until the damage is done, reacts to it and cast a spell once the damage is done. This is considered reactive based healing as is not looked upon is very good light by the raiding community.
WHM has been given more instant cast abilities to help bridge the gap between SCH and WHM emergency (reactive) healing, but it still isnt at the same level as SCH in this regards.

Your A1S analogy is pure and simple a joke. Once again we have lets use SCH abilities in a negative light and lets ignore WHM/AST MP issues. If the WHM/AST spam heals as you describe, then they will run out of MP fast, and either have to have mana given to them vis MCH/BRD lowering dps output, have the SCH take over where the WHM/AST primary reponsibility lies in raids, or non of the previous and people die. Every helaing decison any class makes has consequences. Why you are so hell bent on just making out thta SCH is the only class that has consequences is beyond any reasonable argument. Take your bias out of the arguments and people will be more receptive. Also any raid team worth their salt is able to see if a missle is going to hit in ample time, communicate the fact and deal with it accordingly. Guess what, usually enough time to get shields up, but they really are not needed.

I also find it amusing that the conclusions you have come to in your last post do not match what you were saying in all of your other posts. I will let others conclude why this is.

[VanilleFang]

SCH mitigation

I'm glad you pointed this out. I had thought about making a whole post comparing Noct AST and SCH in way of mitigation, akin to Lyrica's WHM vs SCH post. Some people seem to think Noct AST has as many mitigation options as SCH. They may be similar but there are differences that make SCH, like you said, the best at mitigating damage.