WHM getting progressively more unnecessary in content?

[technole]

HPS doesn't matter. What really matters this is the first Savage tier in HW that all three healers are in-parity with similar clear rates. Compared to Gordias and Midas (even though AST was just fine in Midas from a healing standpoint, the improved QoL of the job attracted more to main it this tier)

Whine Mage....err White Mage is still in a good position.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Threads like these will never stop in any MMORPG where there are limited role slots and more jobs / classes than role slots. It's important for both the developers and readers to be able to sift through the zealots of any job and find the important talking points of any discussion. Making hyperbolic statements regarding the discussion doesn't contribute anything meaningful either.

I don't want AST nerfed back to the 3.0 era but I also feel strongly about how unnecessary the AST buffs from 3.2 and onward felt too and either ASTs need to be tuned back down to be more balanced or WHMs need to be tuned up to match AST and SCH. Of course, again, as re-iterated throughout this thread by multiple posters, any balance changes / additions most likely won't come until 4.0.

I wouldn't say they were unnecessary, though people vastly underestimated them. What I'll never understand is why Balance got a buff. What Astro really needs is have its cards reworked to not essentially be "do I have Balance?" Regardless, I suspect that buff was to motivate people into playing Astro and things will change once Stormblood comes out. Unfortunately, content needs to require more healing if they intend on keeping WHM the de facto "main healer." That has been another issue with balancing the jobs. If you don't need raw healing, WHM just isn't going to benefit the raid to the extent Astro and Scholar will.

[Yeol]

Think of WHM as the MNK of healers.

MNK: Great dps numbers on single target.
WHM: Great healing potency overall.

Both of these jobs lack utility. Not every job in this game should have utility. Some people prefer to be pure healer, pure DPs.
Being overpowered + having utility is just not right. Why would people bother playing other jobs if they have a very powerful job that has everything?

All healers are balanced, and all of them can solo heal content.
Some can do it easily and others have to work harder. In the end, all of them can do it.
It is up to the player and their skills, how they play around with the tools given to them in order to achieve something great.

A group with WHM/MNK can still clear content. They are not really useless or less powerful like what you seem them to be. If you want to have utility simply change your job.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

snip

This works better in theory than execution. A Monk doesn't DPS enough over a Dragoon to warrant the lost raid wide damage by not having Disembowel and Battle Litany. You may actually lose DPS overall because of that difference. White Mage suffers a similar issue. Nothing hits hard enough to warrant dedicated healing, thus Astro and Scholar can mitigate everything just fine while bringing vastly superior raid utility. Neither Monk nor White Mage are bad per se. They just aren't optimal for content right now. Monk needs to do slightly higher damage to justify bringing it over Ninja and Dragoon while White Mage needs to offer something else besides healing, unless content requires more dedicated healing.

Groups will still clear, absolutely. You'll just see large discrepancies on job preference. Last I heard, Dark Knight clears outweighed Paladin in Savage by over a 3:1 margin. The concern becomes longevity. As more people gravitate to the "better jobs," the less you'll see of those suffering.

[Arale]

Rather then put AST back into the dark ages, why not just buff WHM instead? On my main account, I've played as WHM since 1.0 and it's always been pretty boring. This is because the job itself across most of the FF games is also not very exciting either. Just as other classes have evolved in this game from their core elements in the previous titles, WHM should do the same. SCH and AST have their uniqueness outside of healing, and now WHM needs that same trait. Why they didn't change this for Heavensward is beyond me. But AST is a fun healer to play because of it's healing/buffing mechanics. SCH is fun to play because of the pet/DPS mechanics and flexibility. All WHM has sadly is healing. They've needed something well before AST was released.

[Yeol]

...

This is exactly my point. DRG will bring more dps due to their utility.

Increasing MNK dps to make up for their loss of utility is a very bad idea.

As for WHM. They are already good at healing and dpsing.
Sadly, they cannot do both at the same time at endgame because it eats up their MP. AST and SCH have no problem with doing good dps while healing because MP is no issue for them.

In dungeons WHM is superior because they can heal and dps at the same time due to having breaks between pulls that helps them get MP back.

All WHM is missing is a way to get MP back.

[Ghishlain]

I wouldn't say they were unnecessary, though people vastly underestimated them. What I'll never understand is why Balance got a buff. What Astro really needs is have its cards reworked to not essentially be "do I have Balance?" Regardless, I suspect that buff was to motivate people into playing Astro and things will change once Stormblood comes out. Unfortunately, content needs to require more healing if they intend on keeping WHM the de facto "main healer." That has been another issue with balancing the jobs. If you don't need raw healing, WHM just isn't going to benefit the raid to the extent Astro and Scholar will.

I agree with this fully an expecting a huge card rework myself in 4.0. I'm anticipating the removal of 20% Balance and also believe they'll normalize the AST healing spell costs too.

... man if that happens there's going to be a lot of salt on these forums for the first few weeks of 4.0. *Rubs temples* lol. . .

[NorthernLadMSP]

It's going to happen no matter what they do in 4.0. Heaven forbid a 4th healer get thrown in the mix.

I have to say I thought most tanks were whiny and entitled, but now realize healers may actually be worse.

[bswpayton]

I just started playing astro and I admit it will be a shared main along with whm for me but at the same time , what I dont understand about the games community why is it always pointed to what a job can do in a raid, like not even half the game raids. So therefore anyone with the skill level thats gona raid can play whm or any of the other healers just fine because they know what they are doing. Yes whm could use some defensive buffs but at the same time you cant point to one section of the game and claim that it isnt effective , because in my experience I have seen far worse preforming scholars, the op job in normal content than I ever have whm. And the community plays normal content raiding isnt even something that the majority of the player base does so it cant be pointed to the only way to look at a job but yet its all I ever hear.

[Ghishlain]

It's going to happen no matter what they do in 4.0. Heaven forbid a 4th healer get thrown in the mix.

I have to say I thought most tanks were whiny and entitled, but now realize healers may actually be worse.

In the end, everyone will complain about class balance regardless of how balanced the roles get, so that'll be a universal complaint.

Healer forum will definitely see more complaints overall though because Healer's also have to contend with the whole "Do healer's need to DPS" thing which just ends up being more complaints on top of the same baggage of class balance and etc. discussions that would normally murk other roles as well.