Getting WHM on Par

[Deathgiver]

That's heal power, and in my opinion that's what the whm is all about, that's its Identity: heal power, burst damage and mp control.

The problem is that whm burst healing is unnecessary. An AST or SCH both have enough tools to cover the burst heal requirements, while a whm has none of the tools for mitigation or large scale raid dps increases.

edit: As far as dps goes, whm hits 2 significant barriers when in prolonged fights. 1 they need to stat accuracy as every single dps skill they have can miss, and 2 they need to slot piety as they have the worst mp recovery of all 3 healers. This means that their healing toolkit is further nerfed by the reliance on stats that don't increase healing throughput at all.

[JunseiKei]

WHM is fine, IMO. It's a no-nonsense healer that is very straightforward with no "gimmicks."

Back in 2.0, the only thing I kept saying is all WHM needs is one other way to get MP back. Lo and Behold, we got Assize (10% MP back) and to be honest, that's all it really "needed." If they wanted to give WHM something, I'd request make Regen's HoT longer and slightly more potent (even though it's already pretty strong for a HoT). That'll make it even more distinct than AST's diurnal aspected benefic and allow them ample time to DPS, much like a SCH's fairy allows them. However, the HoT will need refreshing, unlike a fairy, so it still won't "threaten" the SCH's throne, so to speak.

If you go off DPS checks on SSS, of the three healers, WHM is actually expected to pull the highest numbers and SCH is expected to pull the lowest. SCH has just always been the preferred DPS healer because of said fairy and guaranteed DoTs back before ACC capping was as popular, or expected, in raiding content as well as having an easier time managing their MP. Nowadays, it's not unheard of for a WHM to do the same, but again, most groups will always cater to the SCH DPSing before a WHM.

[Frowny]

With AST's buffs, WHM needs some better MP regen. AST easily surpasses WHM in that regard even though WHM is the DPS healer now (ignoring SCH).

[DevilsDontFly]

All I want is for Benediction to lose it's animation delay and be an actual instant cast, like the description box says. |:

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Honestly, I think a better solution would be to make fights require consistent healing. While I am a serious advocate for healers to DPS whenever the fight allows, they shouldn't be spending near the amount of time they do in Cleric Stance. Making all forms of content hit harder allows the three healers to properly differentiate. Want to be a primary healer? Pick White Mage. Want to DPS more heavily and provide support heals/shields? Be a Scholar. Want to be a jack-of-all? Level up Astro. Right now, Savage is the only content where this even remotely comes into play.

[JunseiKei]

See, the evil person in me would strip healers of attack spells, sans maybe one. You know, solo play and questing are still a thing. I'm not unmerciful. One that would be horribly MP draining to use in a fight (think Holy and cost stays a static amount based on MP- similar to black mage spells) and accuracy cannot be melded into healer gear. To make sure people didn't circumvent the accuracy ban, make healer a new Disciple- Disciple of Mending. Then make fights harder to heal that actually require both healers and possibly give them debuffs to apply as a means to give them something to do if there's no major healing needed at that current point.

I'm only slightly evil. I swear it.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I guess you had bad healers.

[Kamui_Argent]

Personally, I'd like to see the duration of Aero 1 and 2 increased drastically. (with a small nerf to its potency per tick) to semi compete with SCHs able to stay in Cleric stance longer.
I wouldnt want them dethroned, so im not sure whats a good number.

But other than that, I find WHM pretty good, and wouldnt exclude one from my raid group.
(on a side note, I do like the sound of a self cast only reraise. Though some changes id make to it, long cast time, recast of at LEAST 10mins, if not 15mins, and a duration of only 5-10mins so you have to go w/o it for a short bit)
AST and SCH still offer more in comparison, but at least RR would be friendly to less skilled players, still learning harder content, and save ur SMN a swift cast rez.

The benefit of Aero 2 is that it does a ton of damage in such a short period of time. It does 250 (50 initial + 200 DOT) damage in only 12 seconds.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

That's just the thing, Cure III, while it may look pretty, is not necessary.
Let's use your example on ultimates. What's the difference between preshielding and using a Helios/emergency succor and using a cure III to get everyone up? They both amount to the same thing, with the same effort being put into them.

I can see if right after the ultimate happened another huge aoe hit that required everyone to be topped up in literally seconds. But that's not the case.

Now let's look at the case of AST and SCH effects on ultimates. With luck, a SCH can prevent dmg from the ultimate completely. For AST, collective unconscious puts up a potent shield and regen that makes casting Helios unnecessary.
In the case of WHM, I had people flat out die to an ultimate because we had no mitigation for them. It's really sad, I see some WHM throwing down asylum just to pretend they're actually making a difference during Ultimates...

[Bourne_Endeavor]

snip

No offense, but that's just bad game design. You're more likely to drive people away from healing entirely than encourage them to play it. Making the content harder, and thus necessitating frequent heals provides a reason they can't DPS. Arbitrarily removing all their DPS abilities on top of that is like dungeons putting up walls to prevent large pulls. It feels entirely artificial.