Which Healer has the best DPS Solo

[nankura]

Hey guys,

Simple question, when i first played ffxiv many many years ago, white mage and scholar both had lack luster DPS rotations, they could farm but it was very very slow

So im curious with astrot and all the changes, which healer is best at solo content

[Hestzhyen]

WHM is great for straight-up power + nearly infinite MP. SCH is no slouch either, more MP costs and Broil II spam isn't any more fun than Ruin spam but at least it has a cooler VFX to look at. AST is the weakest, and has the most MP issues, but can still do solo stuff.

[UnryuKurogane]

I've found that WHM is far better than AST. I've been trying to solo most of the story quests with AST and it is painfully slow with the low damage output. WHM has far better damage in my experience.

[Eloah]

It depends on the kind of DPS you are referring to, sustained or burst, and whether they are alone or not.

For burst DPS, WHM wins hands down, with AST in second and SCH last. This is not only a combination of their main DPS spell, but the rest of their oGCD kit. SCH is a Dot job, so that's where most of their damage comes from.

For sustained DPS, SCH reigns supreme, as they always have. Since they use DoTs as their primary means of damage they are able to attack and heal simultaneously. AST and WHM are almost tied for second and third, with who being where is more player dependent. But WHM is usually last since their spells cost more than an ASTs. But it should be noted that a portion of AST sustained DPS is dependent on their card draws.

Now as for a more definitive answer as to who has the best DPS, the best answer would probably be SCH. The main reason being, most fights are designed for sustained DPS over burst. There may be burst phases, but no fight is just bursting the enemy down.

[Ftail]

For sustained DPS, SCH reigns supreme, as they always have.

We aren't talking about raids or end game content, this persons specifically asked who has the best DPS in solo content. The correct answer is WHM. If you go on a Target Dummy, and attack it for 10 minutes straight, WHM wins hands down every single time. This whole thing about Burst, Sustained, ETC. means absolutely nothing when talking about solo content.

WHM has the highest potencies on all of their spells, Stone IV > Broil II... ETC... The only reason SCH is beating them is because of off global cooldown heals, not because they have superior HPS or DPS... In solo content, there is no co-healer you can force to use GCD heals. Which gets me back to my main point, they are talking about SOLO content.

WHM is the best for solo content by far.

[Ftail]

For sustained DPS, SCH reigns supreme, as they always have.

Furthermore, I'll agree SCH has "reigned supreme", more than any other healer throughout the entire games patches after the first expansion. But if you seriously think they have reigned supreme throughout every single patch and during 2.0 entirely, you are completely ignorant. I remember when lvl 50 was the max in binding coil of bahamut turn 2, my FC strongly encouraged me to level a WHM to 50 so we could entirely skip mechanics. Double WHM, was completely broken back then for T2, we could skip doing mechanics and just DPS it.

I really hope what you stated was a hyperbole of a situation that needs to be fixed.

[Eloah]

We aren't talking about raids or end game content, this persons specifically asked who has the best DPS in solo content. The correct answer is WHM. If you go on a Target Dummy, and attack it for 10 minutes straight, WHM wins hands down every single time. This whole thing about Burst, Sustained, ETC. means absolutely nothing when talking about solo content.

WHM has the highest potencies on all of their spells, Stone IV > Broil II... ETC... The only reason SCH is beating them is because of off global cooldown heals, not because they have superior HPS or DPS... In solo content, there is no co-healer you can force to use GCD heals. Which gets me back to my main point, they are talking about SOLO content.

WHM is the best for solo content by far.

Furthermore, I'll agree SCH has "reigned supreme", more than any other healer throughout the entire games patches after the first expansion. But if you seriously think they have reigned supreme throughout every single patch and during 2.0 entirely, you are completely ignorant. I remember when lvl 50 was the max in binding coil of bahamut turn 2, my FC strongly encouraged me to level a WHM to 50 so we could entirely skip mechanics. Double WHM, was completely broken back then for T2, we could skip doing mechanics and just DPS it.

I really hope what you stated was a hyperbole of a situation that needs to be fixed.

3 things:

1: Wow, just wow. Did anything in my answer warrant an attack on my personal intelligence. I wont degrade myself with a rebuttal here, but maybe you should think a bit more carefully before you reply to someone else's post.

2: My answer was SCH, because I said most "fights" were designed for sustained DPS, not most content. Last I checked, solo content still has various fights that need to be overcome.

You aren't inaccurate about what you said about the striking dummy either. But, as I'm sure you are aware, hitting a dummy is completely different than hitting a moving target that cannot attack back, with no mechanics to avoid. Plus the Coil reference you made is an example of a burst mechanic, which I believe I said WHM was better at, so...

3: There is no right answer to the OPs question. It is an open ended question, whose answer will be dependent on the responders personal experience. I gave my reason as to why I felt SCH had the best DPS, but that doesn't mean I am right. Just as you giving your reason doesn't make yours right either.

[Kalise]

I think that SCH > WHM > AST in terms of DPS.

Outside of really weak stuff such as rando overworld mobs where WHM can burst harder.

In terms of numbers:

AST has Malefic III which is 220 Potency and Combust II which is 50 Potency 30s Duration (500 total Potency). There's some extra RNG boosts from getting Spear (More crits), Balance (More damage) or Lord of Crowns (300 Potency ST nuke).

WHM has Stove IV which is 250 Potency, Aero II which is 50 Potency 18s Duration (300 total Potency), Aero III which is 50 Potency with the DoT of 40 Potency 24s Duration (370 total Potency) plus AoE and Assize which has just been buffed to 400 Potency and is oGCD. (As a side note, overworld content can make Assize unusable, because it's large area of effect can make it hit non-aggressive enemies that you then need to spend time killing...)

SCH has Broil II which is 230 Potency, Miasma which is 35 Potency 24s Duration (280 total Potency), Bio II which is 35 Potency 30s Duration (350 total Potency), Miasma II which is 25 Potency 12s duration (100 total Potency) in an AoE, Shadow Flare which is 50 Potency 15s Duration (250 total Potency) which is an AoE and oGCD and Energy Drain which is 150 Potency and oGCD. They also have Chain Stratagem to boost crits temporarily.

So, with a bit of luck, AST can do quite well with decent card RNG. WHM has just the highest damage nuke which is what you spend most of your time spamming. Assize can be pretty effective, especially if you're having to heal yourself and so generating Lilies naturally to reduce its CD. While SCH has the larger number of tools to push out damage, with 2 oGCD abilities and some decent AoE damage and their nuke isn't that far behind WHM, though their DoTs are ironically a bit anaemic, especially if doing content where enemies won't last their full duration...

All in all, as a Healer, you're pretty much doomed to having pretty meh damage, mostly just spamming a 220-250 potency nuke every ~2.5 seconds... But there are some differences when you're doing content where you require healing, so SCH can have their Faerie heal them to spend more time pushing out damage, WHM can build Lillies to reduce the CD of Assize if not healing themselves through their oGCD heals alone, while AST is punished the most for requiring healing because they don't have any way to mitigate the DPS loss from having to cast heals instead of damage.

[Erakir]

Yeah, the fairy does a lot of heavy lifting in certain solo scenarios. Not everything done solo is over in 15 seconds - solo duties among them, as well as anyone who wants to do things like soloing old raids. Then there's FATEs, particularly big-mob ones. Maps. If a white mage has to spend one extra GCD healing themselves over using a nuke it takes an additional 9-10 Stone IV casts before they make up that lost GCD in terms of nukes alone. If you're keeping regen on yourself throughout a fight that's 3 GCDs a minute. Assize, Tetra, and Benison all come somewhat late to the package. SCH has triple energy drain while soloing to compete with Assize on single target.

Then there's all the AoE stuff to consider in various bits of solo content and what that actually means.

Then there's the fact that we can now AoE heal NPC allies during solo duties - the Stormblood ones at least.

The technicalities on which healer has the easiest / quickest time soloing are...nuanced, if one really wants to get into a discussion of it. There's not much reason to, though. Nobody's theorycrafting who can do maps faster or who can solo old raids faster, but those are both examples of solo content. All healers do them fine, none of them blowing any other out of the water entirely in terms of ease to survive and general ease/time of killing. SCH used to be one of the first to solo old raids because of Critlo adding necessary survival, but with Stormblood jacking up the max damage we can take and having straight up insta-wipes...that likely won't be a factor in future 'old raids.'

Maybe the best way of putting it is...having a chocobo out will generally make more difference in the open world than any healer you've selected to play.

[Ftail]

3 things:

1: Wow, just wow. Did anything in my answer warrant an attack on my personal intelligence. I wont degrade myself with a rebuttal here, but maybe you should think a bit more carefully before you reply to someone else's post.

I never degraded you, that's just your insecurities playing you. (I'm insulting you for a first time here, with "insecurities", however I never meant to offend you before.)

2: My answer was SCH, because I said most "fights" were designed for sustained DPS, not most content. Last I checked, solo content still has various fights that need to be overcome.

You aren't inaccurate about what you said about the striking dummy either. But, as I'm sure you are aware, hitting a dummy is completely different than hitting a moving target that cannot attack back, with no mechanics to avoid. Plus the Coil reference you made is an example of a burst mechanic, which I believe I said WHM was better at, so...

We aren't talking about most fights, we are talking about solo quests. If you think solo content, "still has various fights that need to be overcome." you are dead wrong.

3: There is no right answer to the OPs question. It is an open ended question, whose answer will be dependent on the responders personal experience. I gave my reason as to why I felt SCH had the best DPS, but that doesn't mean I am right. Just as you giving your reason doesn't make yours right either.

There actually is a right answer just because you can't comprehend it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. SCH does have the Best DPS in most circumstances. If you think it's always the best, you missed the entire point and i'm sorry for you.