Should WHM get a personal damage buff?

[RopeDrink]

I have no interest in crunching numbers or comparing semi-serious me vs batches of logs from the pros in top-content, given such exploration leads to the lesser-played portion when you consider the game as a whole. I may never see Kefka-Savage, so how I stock up vs 360-370il WHM in top-tier content as a semi-casual 356il won't matter so much - but even from the little I do see, I know I'm far from incapable of producing solid damage numbers, and the AoE is just gross. Yes, SCH isn't far behind in that regard, yet they also aren't producing AoE stuns alongside it, and (for all I know) may not share the same MP freedom, which means you can do more than required. Having said that, I consciously avoid SCH and AST - I have no desire to play them, thus I can't talk about them in any way.

Ultimately, WHM is in a good place right now - not amazing, far from terrible. People like me can live with being dungeon-centric and certainly don't see the need for further damage increases, especially considering how easy it is to provide what we are currently capable of. I'll leave the nit-picking to those who are actually effected by top-tier metas that may decide to exclude them due to their chosen class, yet I have a feeling (due to SE's supposed attitude towards DPS/Healing) that not much will change, regardless of the community consensus. Given our pure-healing status, I'm happy to see that we're at least, on average, the middle-road DPS. Throwing more on-top of it doesn't really solve much, as in curing one issue, you then highlight something wrong with another. The gap between AST and SCH already looks pretty gruesome.

[Eloah]

I'm not really seeing anyone mention it, unless I missed it, but it's not as simple as saying raid or dungeon. While the gap has decreased do to the changes that came out in Stormblood WHM, SCH, and AST, are all still in the same places they have been.

WHM, has the best burst DPS, not to mention the best AoE, MP management being in your favor. SCH, has the best sustained DPS, and the second best AoE, with an AoE spell that has no deminishing return. AST, is last with lackluster burst, sustained, and AoE damage, but they mainly bolster their party members DPS.

So the shorter you expect the fight to be WHM is better, the longer SCH is better, and dead center would be AST, who needs more time to burst things down when compared to WHM, but less time then SCH.

[Tridus]

Let Stone IV generate lilies at 33% or something. With 3 Lilies, let me fire off a high power oGCD nuke.

There, a single target DPS boost when you can spend the GCDs to DPS, and lilies do something people actually want.

[VanilleFang]

But WHM isn't frozen out yet. So what exactly is the problem?

[EaMett]

Honestly, the reason why AST+WHM isn't to be seen in the top comps is just because SCH rDPS is high enough that it's a significant contributor to placing well. That is all.
We can talk all day about skills of one healer vs another but lets be honest, most content (even savage) only requires about 20% of your healing potential. The top parses require dps not healing. And SCH tops the charts by a pretty significant amount so it's only natural that comps with SCH would place higher than those without.

[EaMett]

The single target rDPS gap between SCH and WHM isn't really small by any means. Unless the WHM doesn't have to heal and we fall back onto dummy parse territory and even then there is still a gap, in content that allows this play style. WHM redeems itself in many other areas though (burst dps, high sustained hps, aoe dps).

Sadly, those qualities are kind of underwhelming when it comes to the actual content that tends to lock classes out (raiding). Today, WHM is valued as a skill padding class and works well given the current progression stage (SCH + WHM is still a comfort comp).

Do I think this means it's a balancing issue? Nope, it's just the result of WHM's position as the beginner/progression healer and I'm fine with that. I've only recently switched from WHM to SCH but I still love using WHM for dungeons and consider it to be the best healer for such content. But lets call a cat a cat, WHM provides the least raid dps in content that cares about raid dps and has a tendency to lock classes out, I'm calling it.

[VanilleFang]

But with what evidence are you "calling it"? WHM was in a really, really bad place in HW. After 3.4 SCH and AST were like gods compared to WHM. AST was over buffed, and SCH had been a problem since day 1 of HW basically.

[EaMett]

But with what evidence are you "calling it"? WHM was in a really, really bad place in HW. After 3.4 SCH and AST were like gods compared to WHM. AST was over buffed, and SCH had been a problem since day 1 of HW basically.

I played WHM in the post progression phase of HW (mind you not the worst time for whm), and up until last tier. The issues with the WHM then are the same we have now. Once everyone is familiar with content and geared up WHM brings nothing to the table compared to the other healers. So I naturally expect things to be somewhat similar. (ie: people wanting more raid utility for WHM, etc. etc.)
It's also an opinion comforted by my personal experience of PF having farmed a bunch of primals for mounts recently. It's not by a crazy amount but we're already seeing more frequent WHM lockouts of primal farms since players want kills as fast as possible. I think this is stupid but yeah.

[MoroMurasaki]

I think this is stupid but yeah.

Ever since the start of this farce of a conversation I have been looking primal farms every day multiple times because I didn't want to stick my foot in my mouth by claiming WHM isn't seeing any lockout.

I have seen one Shin EX party have a slot locked to SCH and it was formed by an AST. I joined the party despite not playing SCH to ask if she would take me with her on WHM, she said she preferred Diurnal healing which was the reason for the SCH lock.

No locked Byakko. No locked Lakshmi or Susano. Hardly a locked Shinryu, and nothing to do with rDPS in the subsequent conversation.

I would love to see any evidence of your claims. Without it your antecdote is just that - an antecdote.

There isn't any proof of an issue here. There are multiple WHM mains who frequent PF claiming to experience virtually no class restrictions spread over both NA datacenters.

[EaMett]

I would love to see any evidence of your claims. Without it your antecdote is just that - an antecdote.

Well first off I never claimed it to be anything but anecdotal. I even disclaimed it as such. I simply exposed my reasoning which stands on it's own, and backed it up a bit with some personal experiences.
Experiences of which aren't just over a "few days" worth but months of farming primals. And I'm talking hundreds of clears overall, over 500 at least. I stopped counting. I've seen hundreds if not a thousand + PFs during that time and have found that there is a noticeable increase in lockouts for WHM. Again, like I said in my previous post, it isn't a crazy amount and there is nothing atm that really holds you back from any content as a WHM, but it's still an increase.

Currently, because we're in progression, most lockouts are ilvl based anyways. People are asking for 350s to run lakshmi ex etc. etc. It's today's flavor of unreasonable restrictions to farm quickly. I'm just saying that tomorrow's flavor will be meta based (for the reasons exposed in previous posts)