Are we going to repeat Heavensward again?

[HyperiusUltima]

It feels like ever since the patch dropped, AST has been on a rampage vs. WHM in regards to how fluent it plays vs. WHM's rigidness. Being a healer that had learned a lot from Heavensward raiding as WHM, I've begun to see that they're repeating the same mistakes they did in Heavensward for the sake of improving another job in 4.4(similar to 3.4).

This is my personal opinion, but I think that WHM needs to be looked at more than the other two healers because let's see:

- SCH got its pet fixed which it definitely needed for a long time.
- AST got cast time reduction on Aspected Helios?! as well as their DPS to help weave better. Oh, and let's not forget the buff to CU.

So, my main issue here is how AST got preferential treatment(as much as I hate using this term, it certainly is imbalancing) in regards to how Aspected Helios is a 2.5 vs. WHM's Medica II being 3s. This allows healing to come out faster and start ticking compared to a slower cast time just for a measly 10 potency difference!

As much as I don't mind them fixing certain things that are problems to certain jobs(fluidity as well as clunkiness to an ability that is supposed to be a job mechanic), this tells me that they aren't checking WHM and are only counting on its healing factor for performance. I understand why they would, but as far as I know after the SotL II fix, they haven't really touched WHM aside from allowing Ground DoTs and Asylum to activate immediately upon use and only have done anything to SCH/AST.

All I can say is that AST has begun trampling over WHM this expansion due to how its fluency has been affected just so that AST can be allowed to DPS while throwing out its rDPS cards. ...and for the love of god from the WHM community, PLEASE FIX LILIES NEXT EXPANSION.

[Elamys]

Okay, can we get it out of the way that the change to CU was not a "buff" specific to AST? It was a necessary change to CU that was added to a number of other similar abilities. It shouldn't take a few seconds for the HoT to be applied. Which is why they made that exact change to Asylum as well.

Secondly, I was thinking about this constant battling between AST and WHM and it occurred to be that the problem may not necessarily be that AST is so much stronger than WHM, but rather that nocturnal AST is not nearly as good as SCH. Yes, WHM needs to bring something unique other than being the "progression" healer, but the fact remains that you pretty much never replace a SCH. (If anyone got preferential treatment, I'd say it's them, personally.)

I don't think the problem is going to be fixed just by changing Lilies, or giving WHM some sort of damage buff. It's only going to be fixed when they stop treating AST as some sort of replacement for whichever "main" healer you don't have...or, if they're going to cling to that, they make it so that it's worth replacing a SCH with a Nocturnal AST. Personally, I'd rather they rework AST from the top down, but well, I think we all know SE's not going to do that.

The Malefic change was dumb, though. I don't think AST needs to have really high personal DPS. Yeah, it sucked for soloing, but how much time do you REALLY spend soloing any sort of challenging content in this game? It seems like a change they put in without testing how it actually affected AST's damage in the hands of skilled players.

[Bahati]

It's a shame that for being the most iconic healing job in the Final Fantasy franchise that White Mage has been a wreck for so long in this game. While I agree there is far too much time spent perfecting AST, the bigger issue to me is every change made to overall gameplay seems to be made without any regard to WHM at all.

To think that it took until now in 4.4 to even get our full tool kit back, not that it gave us identity back as every other healer can use them too. It would seem we should be thankful for Thin Air and Holy, they are all we have left that is not similar to abilities the other healers have a version of themselves.

[Neela]

just wait for dancer and balance will be knockbacked even more... not talking bout the Blue-Mage on Casters side yet : /

[IanFrench]

WHM VS AST ROUND 2

Ready ? GO!!!

ONLY the winner can earn a place next to SE's beloved SCH in raids.

[NobleWinter]

Plenary Indulgence is my only gripe with WHM. I just really dislike the skill. It seems cumbersome and awful. WHM needs to change the capstone ability to anything else and it would be great. I would love a "Divine Command" ability to reduce your next spells cast time and recast time to 1 second on a 60 second cool down. It would be like a secondary Swiftcast and it would really help pump out those clutch multiple DPS revives. You could squeeze out a Medica II on the fly or simply amp up your dps with a sudden Holy or Stone. Ugh I hate Plenary.

[Risvertasashi]

Meanwhile SCH+AST meta solidifies even more, as more and more top end raiders underscore AST's advantages in the later floors of alphascape.

Welcome back, patch 3.4.

[Yuyuka3]

Meanwhile SCH+AST meta solidifies even more, as more and more top end raiders underscore AST's advantages in the later floors of alphascape.

Welcome back, patch 3.4.

Not as if anyone with half a brain could see it coming from 3000 miles away. But, hey. WHM is fine, right, and I'm just bad for not seing how AST totally needed these last two(?) rounds of buffs...

[Limonia]

I thought the AST buffs were very nice, it was more QoL than buffs. The problem was that WHM didn't get anything but has the same problems with clipping that AST had. I don't understand why they didn't just reduce the Stone and Medica II cast times at the same time they reduced Malefic and Aspected Helios. Not that it would make WHM suddenly really great, but if AST gets easy-to-implement QoL changes, why not WHM too?

[Tint]

I thought the AST buffs were very nice, it was more QoL than buffs. The problem was that WHM didn't get anything but has the same problems with clipping that AST had. I don't understand why they didn't just reduce the Stone and Medica II cast times at the same time they reduced Malefic and Aspected Helios. Not that it would make WHM suddenly really great, but if AST gets easy-to-implement QoL changes, why not WHM too?

It would just further turn these both healers into a copy of each other.

AST always was the faster healer, with more instant heals, while WHM was slower and relys more on hardcasting. However, that shifted already over time, what I really dislike, relying on hardcasts is a more interesting gameplay than just healing instant on the fly IMO.

By reducing WHMs cast times WHM will lose even more of it's own identity.