SCH needs some nerfs

[LiddyGhu]

Eh? Doing less when playing optimally?
Are the 99% combined healer damage numbers suddenly sub-optimal play?
Miasma 2's cost definitely gets less and less of an issue with refresh and double refresh - no other healer gets to take advantage of extra MP at all DPSwise like SCH gets to when it comes to damage.


I'd also argue that what you say about Indom is precisely why it's so powerful. Mmmm I can certainly agree that other abilities have less opportunity cost (Aetherflow and all) and can be used for wonderful effects, but it's simply its availability and versatility that shoot it up there. It's a very powerful tool that - I mean, I can kinda call it "icing on the cake" given everything the fairy does.

The fact that it's such a generally powerful ability and is used infrequently at top levels of play simply gives more credence to what you say with the fairy. SCH is as strong as it is without constant Indom, yet if they need it it's still there

I, myself, am an example of '99% combined healer' play. I have 99% combined healer runs on all alphascape turns, and am #2 for SCH+WHM on O12S.
And I consider our play suboptimal (bolded the question). Still, it's not untrue for me to say that my WHM does almost 33% more DPS than I do, because all of my aetherflow is going to healing rather than Energy Drain.
Regarding Double Refresh, the devs have already talked about how they balance everything for 2x Melee, 1x ranged, and 1x caster. Given the developers' standard, I think this is out of discussion for balance. (Otherwise, we'd be talking about how OP Noct AST is and how it can solo heal every last bit of content in the game much easier than the other healers, including Ultimates.)
Scholar's GCDs are weaker than WHM's GCDs, so Scholar is the first player to heal in optimal play between the two classes. The dynamic changes in SCH+AST because AST's GCDs are weaker, but AST has more tools to prevent healers from having to spend GCDs at all compared to WHM, so the personal DPS of scholar ends up looking more "on par" with AST.

Calling scholar's indomitability "icing on the cake," is more like "really nice icing on a really MP inefficient cake."
The reason they have tools like Whispering Dawn and Indomitability is precisely because of how awful it is to cast Succor. It costs more than 1/8 of the MP bar after reaching better gear (low piety builds for higher DPS.) For an example, compare it to Cure III, who costs only 240 more MP and is 550 potency, versus Succor at 375 potency. The difference is massive.
Perhaps if they had a normal MP-efficient AoE heal like 'Helios,' or 'Medica,' then I would consider the idea of removing or nerfing indomitability, but as it stands, scholar suffers too harshly without it in the AoE healing category.

[LiddyGhu]

Eh? Doing less when playing optimally?

This whole thread has had examples of current savage content and healer damage numbers, both in highly optimized and sub-optimal play (Come join me down here, we just killed O11, woo!~). Are the 99% combined healer damage numbers suddenly sub-optimal play? Say whatever we want about kill times affecting DPS numbers so the healer DPS number isn't the only real factor, the end result is still a stronger raid group.

I forgot one other thing in my last post towards you. Scholar's Omega weapon, i405, is actually their BiS. WHM's BiS is the tomestone weapon at i400, because of the poor substats on the omega weapon. So this tier can also be a bit of a bad example for WHM's personal numbers.
I've seen some builds for AST which use the i400 weapon as well, but it comes with less piety than the omega weapon rather than no piety, so I'm not sure I agree with those builds personally.

I don't necessarily believe Whispering Dawn is too OP simply because Eos isn't used at all in the top end environments because Earthly Star does it's job. Back in HW Eos was meta because Earthly Star didn't exist and Whispering Dawn saved more DPS from healers than Fey Wind gave.

Interesting. I don't heal with an AST, so I didn't know WD wasn't being used in favour of Fey Wind right now.

The problem with the fairy comes down to Embrace honestly. Having a passive regen (that's stronger than ASP Benefic/Regen) that lasts throughout the fight and costs 0 resources is laughable because single target damage is the main source of incoming damage in this game. You have AoEs but those are covered with the large abundant of AoE heals each healer has. Where the only free single target heals we have in the game are Embrace, Fey Union, Essential Dignity, Tetra and Benediction. Every skill in that list is limited aside from Embrace which heals constantly for 5k/8k crit or 8k/11k Crit under Rouse.

Embrace is the reason you can get through O9-O11 with 0 single target heals and only have to cast 3 ASP B in O12S. And either needs an obvious nerf or another job needs to have a similar effect like maybe DNC. In my opinion I think it would be good to tag some MP value on Embrace making it cost 100-200 per cast and taking the auto heal function off when on Obey. This would make it so that healers at a low skill level are still able to utilize her by leaving them on auto as they won't be DPSing much so they won't run into MP issues. But at the higher levels you would be picking and choosing where to heal as MP is a lot more limited.

I agree that Embrace is a problem. But I don't like the idea of having players constantly forced to micro the pet. I'd rather see the fairy act more akin to the PvP version of herself. Still technically automatic, but just adds a little but on top to whatever heals you give out while she's summoned. Or remove embrace entirely and keep Fey Union as the major fairy-healing option.
Having the MP cost on it would drive me absolutely insane to see a scholar in a pug. (Welcome to "get out of my party.")

[Ftail]

Indom is just really dang good at what it does and is ridiculously useful, even if it's the first to go as we get more and more optimal due to that opportunity cost. The 45s AF change and potency buff just make it even better at what it was designed for, even though we have ES now and a 60s Assize as well.

The fact that it's such a generally powerful ability and is used infrequently at top levels of play simply gives more credence to what you say with the fairy. SCH is as strong as it is without constant Indom, yet if they need it it's still there. I'm always gonna be salty at Indom's kneejerk buff in early in SB cause it just honestly didn't need it, but what can ya do.

First let me start by saying that WHM needs changes to be competitive in high end raiding.

Indom can only be casted a single time once every 30 seconds. The fact AF is 45s doesn't change that. It's an amazing spell, that can be weaved in oGCD but if you are in a learning party with a lot of people making mistakes you'll soon be finding yourself using Succor the only non CD related heals available to SCH. I haven't forgot about Whispering Dawn, but that's on a 1min CD and isn't great if you need big heals NOW. If the group wipes because the cohealer died, and the SCH isn't able to throw out sustained burst healing like a WHM can, honestly the rest of the party is to blame for failing mechanics. But, I still get salty that WHM has Cure III, Plenary Indulgence, Medica II, Medica (no shields, so no having to worry about casting multiple succors if Emergency Tactics is Down), Asylum, Assize options for AOE healing.

SCH excels in groups that do the mechanics well and only have the rare occasional mistake. WHM feels like a special needs guardian with all the overkill healing options. In my opinion SCH doesn't need any nerfs, WHM just needs to be nerfed & buffed at the same time. Let's turn Planary Indulgence into a DPS spell not a healing one (or a buff that would help both healing and DPS), then lets boost the potency on Cure III, make it 10y instead of 6y and put it on a 20 second timer. For good measure, let's add one more DoT to keep track of to help boost that DPS more. My final idea is to turn Fluid Aura into a small group buff say 3% Spell Speed & Weapon Skill Speed Increase for Rdps.

[Mansion]

then lets boost the potency on Cure III, make it 10y instead of 6y and put it on a 20 second timer. .

Do you want agro? Because that's how you get agro.

[Ftail]

Do you want agro? Because that's how you get agro.

Then don't overheal, and being unable to spam it helps out with aggro.

Edit: Also, I'm not talking about a crazy potency buff. Maybe just 50, maximum of 100.

[Deceptus]

As always when it comes to balance, my default stance is that other jobs should be brought up, not SCH nerfed down.

SCH, much like Warrior, has a complete kit. That is a good thing. The devs should strive to make other jobs do the same.

[Maltothoris]

The problem with trying to bring it up, per say, is how? The thing with this is it would drastically bring up the power creep that happens with every expansion. Not to mention, when that point is brought up, I rarely see others try to offer suggestions to bring the Whm up to DiAst and Sch level.

That being said, hard nerfs should not be the way as the beginning of SB showed in Sch. Having its mp economy reduced, its dps reduced and the fairy weakened was a bit much when only one of those would of done it. I think the change in whispering dawn in 4.3 is the best example of a decent nerf per say. Easier to use and higher potency but due to being changed into an ability, it lost its interaction with Rouse and Fey Illumination, not to mention the other healing buffs like Nature's Minne or Mantra. WD is now easier to use and can bring the fairy out of Fey Union but lost some burst. That I would be a good example of a decent nerf.

Edit: DOn't mean to be a downer but given SE's track record and having hear the same talk before back when it was 3.4-3.5 and hearing the same talk of "Just bring the Whm up to Sch level" and offer no suggestions on how to do it, just reminding pessimistic.

[LiddyGhu]

The problem with trying to bring it up, per say, is how? The thing with this is it would drastically bring up the power creep that happens with every expansion. Not to mention, when that point is brought up, I rarely see others try to offer suggestions to bring the Whm up to DiAst and Sch level.

I'll give some suggestions.
Increase the healing power of 'Assize,' and move the Damage it does back to another ability, keeping WHM's PPS the same while allowing WHM to use Assize for healing purposes. Let's say, instead of 300 HPot, it's 440 HPot.
Also move the MP restoring function of Assize onto another ability. Either put the same 10% MP recovery on another 1min-cooldown ability like Tetra, or reduce the cooldown of Thin Air.
Buff Divine Benison to 20%, making it about as strong as Lustrate to Tank.

Doing these things would put WHM in a more AST-like and SCH-like position where they are able to focus their OGCD heals to prevent healing GCDs from being necessary.

At the cost of making their healing kit better, I would remove/completely modify Plenary Indulgence into a raidwide Damage buff of some sort, theoretically equivalent in balance to Chain Stratagem.
At the cost of having a raidwide damage buff, make their Personal Damage equivalent to Scholar.

Having party-wide damage buffs makes it so that later in the expansion, WHM does not fall behind due to scaling of damage for healers vs scaling of damage for DPS. (Info about that in a previous post on this thread already.)
These are just some quick brainstorms of how I would change WHM to bring it up to AST's level.

[Deceptus]

I'll give some suggestions.
Increase the healing power of 'Assize,' and move the Damage it does back to another ability, keeping WHM's PPS the same while allowing WHM to use Assize for healing purposes. Let's say, instead of 300 HPot, it's 440 HPot.
Also move the MP restoring function of Assize onto another ability. Either put the same 10% MP recovery on another 1min-cooldown ability like Tetra, or reduce the cooldown of Thin Air.
Buff Divine Benison to 20%, making it about as strong as Lustrate to Tank.

Doing these things would put WHM in a more AST-like and SCH-like position where they are able to focus their OGCD heals to prevent healing GCDs from being necessary.

At the cost of making their healing kit better, I would remove/completely modify Plenary Indulgence into a raidwide Damage buff of some sort, theoretically equivalent in balance to Chain Stratagem.
At the cost of having a raidwide damage buff, make their Personal Damage equivalent to Scholar.

Having party-wide damage buffs makes it so that later in the expansion, WHM does not fall behind due to scaling of damage for healers vs scaling of damage for DPS. (Info about that in a previous post on this thread already.)
These are just some quick brainstorms of how I would change WHM to bring it up to AST's level.

Or allow Fluid Aura to give back some MP as it's useless normally.

Allow Lillies to act as confession stacks and make WHM the AOE heal king.

[LiddyGhu]

Or allow Fluid Aura to give back some MP as it's useless normally.

Allow Lillies to act as confession stacks and make WHM the AOE heal king.

I think that's just it. WHM has too many dead buttons compared to Scholar. Scholar doesn't have a useless ability. Let's look at some facts.

WHM has these endgame buttons which are never used in endgame content:
Repose
Fluid Aura

WHM receives four levels of the same spell (Stone -> Stone IV) and two levels of another same spell (Aero -> Aero II)

Scholar receives three levels of the same spell (Ruin -> Broil -> Broil II) and two levels of another same spell (Bio -> Bio II)

Scholar automatically has an extra three buttons compared to White Mage because of this.
White mage also has two very lengthy cooldowns (defined as above two minutes of cooldown):
Presence of Mind
Benediction

Scholar has only one very lengthy cooldown :
Dissipation

Another takeaway here is that Scholar's Dissipation is more of a niche tool, whereas White Mage's Presence of Mind and Benediction are highly valuable skills that can't be used often.
After this, Scholar receives extra abilities from having a pet, but loses two abilities on Summon and Summon II.
Embrace
and

Whispering Dawn
Fey Covenant
Fey Illumination
OR
Fey Wind
Fey Caress
Silent Dusk

The simple disparity in the amount of useful buttons as well as the activity of their useful buttons will easily cause this imbalance between WHM and SCH.
With how Scholar has give or take 5 more useful buttons than White Mage, it's like they are an expansion ahead. Hopefully you all will look at this as something to change as well.