White Mage Overflow

[Billythepancake]

It's actually somewhat baffling that people will claim SCH and AST were never OP before, just because it's undertuned right now. The reason why these changes hit AST and SCH in the first place is because they were so incredibly strong, and the reason why WHM was left alone was because it had nothing OP to rework. If that's not telling you something then I don't know what to say.

AST needs some buffs and maybe SCH as well, but please don't claim these jobs were never OP and that WHM was always a fine job when it was struggling with any kind of identity or raid spot for 4 years.

If scholar was OP, they could've put it in line without reducing it to mindless 1 button spam. Besides, it's as strong as it has always been, it just has nothing to do when there's downtime. So now SCH is just punished for doing well.

[Hatstand]

It's actually somewhat baffling that people will claim SCH and AST were never OP before, just because it's undertuned right now. The reason why these changes hit AST and SCH in the first place is because they were so incredibly strong, and the reason why WHM was left alone was because it had nothing OP to rework. If that's not telling you something then I don't know what to say.

AST needs some buffs and maybe SCH as well, but please don't claim these jobs were never OP and that WHM was always a fine job when it was struggling with any kind of identity or raid spot for 4 years.

SCH isn't undertuned, as far as I can tell, at least in terms of healing. It's undertuned in terms of fun, for a lot of players (mostly those who didn't like WHM because they didn't like the style of play in previous expansions, as opposed to because it was less desirable at endgame, I suspect).

[TonberiScholar]

It's actually somewhat baffling that people will claim SCH and AST were never OP before, just because it's undertuned right now. The reason why these changes hit AST and SCH in the first place is because they were so incredibly strong, and the reason why WHM was left alone was because it had nothing OP to rework. If that's not telling you something then I don't know what to say.

AST needs some buffs and maybe SCH as well, but please don't claim these jobs were never OP and that WHM was always a fine job when it was struggling with any kind of identity or raid spot for 4 years.

Or, after having the same problem with White Mage for one and a half expansions (late Heavensward and most of Stormblood), they could've just brought the outlier up instead of sticking to a concept ("pure healer with no shields or utility") that they themselves ended up abandoning in the next expansion.

White Mage was underpowered towards the end of Heavensward and for most of Stormblood for the things players actually cared about, and the devs should've just normalized based on that for Shadowbringers instead of "balancing" around a healing paradigm that hasn't existed since ARR, if even then.

Adding stuff to WHM to make it more competitive wouldn't have changed its core gameplay loop, because the things it was missing were things that were separate from its kit in the first place. Being the high-personal-DPS Healer that it is now would still work even if it got the instants and revamped Lily system it has now.

Instead two unique styles of Healer play (pet micro and RNG buff decisions) got butchered because they decided WHM was the only "acceptable" Healer style.

And then they turn around and end up giving WHMs the stuff that people liked SCH and AST for, but only after ruining the two other Healers in the process.

Yet most of the WHMs here are just more concerned about "SCH/AST were OP" and how it's "their time to shine".

For a Job with so many vehement defenders of "healers shouldn't have to DPS", y'all are pretty good at doing damage to all the Healers.

In "pure healing", SCH's stronger than it has ever been, to the point where every element of mechanical identity it's had since ARR except shielding is gone. If all SCH players cared about was "being OP", you'd think there wouldn't be as many complaints as there are now. And with the cost cut to Art of War, it's quicker AoE Potency for a lower proportional cost, yet I (and seemingly others) would still prefer the old DoTs->Bane-> Shadowflare loop.

Both SCH and AST got hack-job nerfs applied to them to the point where they've even got leftovers that entirely don't fit (SCH's entire pet bar, every bit of Lore around Astrologian) that they didn't even bother removing or changing. In the expansion of "Healer balancing", no less.

There's way more to what makes a job enjoyable/distinct than just its pure DPS or healing throughput numbers (or it being "OP"), but so long as they're cramming every Healer into a WHM-lite mold, all that stuff's going to be thrown by the wayside to try and balance things with just Potency adjustments and cost adjustments.

And that's doomed to fail.

If the Tank roles or DPS roles were treated like this, you wouldn't see people coming into every thread discussing the thing and talking about how "it's okay they lost their identity, because x class I liked was underpowered based on what players want but not against the content" as they try to drown out the dissatisfied people or temporize the problems they bring up.

Yet it's somehow "okay" for Healers, so long as all the Healers end up looking like White Mage.

[SieyaM]

I don't think it would be too much given the long cooldown of Celestial Opposition but the name to me seems to imply that it would give the opposite effect of your current sect. There is already a single target ability with that effect and with how weak the heal is from Celestial Opposition I don't see why having it give the opposite effect of your sect would be an issue.

[WaxSw]

I agree, Whm right now is overpowered and on top of that Ast/Sch feels less interesting as ever, I hope 5.05 and maybe 5.1 address this problems but seeing what the devs delivered in 5.0 I'm not sure that they are able to fix it

[TonberiScholar]

I agree, Whm right now is overpowered and on top of that Ast/Sch feels less interesting as ever, I hope 5.05 and maybe 5.1 address this problems but seeing what the devs delivered in 5.0 I'm not sure that they are able to fix it

The saddest part about this?

Nerfing WHM won't fix anything.

It shouldn't be nerfed, period. If they're going to be so stubborn as to completely lock it out of raid DPS buffs, it needs to have a lead in personal DPS roughly proportional to the "selfish DPS" vs "support DPS" dichotomy elsewhere (modified by whatever proportion of DPS'ing time they're assuming).

But breaking off all the bits that don't fit into the WHM-lite mold for every other Healer and then buffing WHM sets a bad precedent for healer identity/diversity going forward.

About the only thing that'd make the outlook gloomier is if they end up nerfing WHM after using "it's underperforming" as an excuse to kill off the other Healer gameplay styles that were previously represented.

[aiqa]

If they're going to be so stubborn as to completely lock it out of raid DPS buffs

It's dumb there are so many complaints about healers being made to similar, and in the same breath players ask for healers to be made even more similar (but of course similar to their own preferred job).
WHM never was a buff class, and players that enjoy WHM are very likely not the players that enjoy buffing others.
It's fine to "fight" for your own preferred class to keep it's own identity and playstyle, but it's dumb to try get other classes changed to mirror your own preferred class and playstyle.
Even more so if your main complaint is SCH being to similar to WHM now.

[TonberiScholar]

It's dumb there are so many complaints about healers being made to similar, and in the same breath players ask for healers to be made even more similar (but of course similar to their own preferred job).
WHM never was a buff class, and players that enjoy WHM are very likely not the players that enjoy buffing others.
It's fine to "fight" for your own preferred class to keep it's own identity and playstyle, but it's dumb to try get other classes changed to mirror your own preferred class and playstyle.
Even more so if your main complaint is SCH being to similar to WHM now.

Getting a raid DPS buff added (even something like Chain Stratagem where it's an oGCD you hit once every two minutes or so) would've solved the "oh noes WHM is weak and no one wants it in raids" problem that existed in Stormblood without requiring any other changes.

Compare that to how much had to be broken or removed on AST/SCH to make them more like WHM.

Adding a single skill that you hit once every two minutes back in Stormblood would've let them keep WHM 99.9% the same as it is now in Shadowbringers without requiring them to gut AST/SCH, while also going a long way towards solving the "WHM doesn't offer a DPS increase" thing that was bandied about so heavily during Stormblood.

Instead, SCH/AST lost :

• Bane
• Miasma (and the concept of being the "DoT-focused" healer
• Shadowflare
• Targeted Fairy Control
• Different Fairy Abilities
• Energy Drain
• Non-damaging Card buffs (between 3 and 5 depending how you count)
• Stun on CO
• Most of AST's healing potencies
• Some of AST's shielding potencies
• Ability to extend buffs (bet we're getting Time Mage as a Caster DPS)

Against all that...you're complaining about the potential of WHM getting one ability.

The two situations aren't even remotely comparable.

The most laughable part?

"Designated Healers" in story instances have damage buffs for the party. Go look at Lamitt in the Physical DPS Roleplay quest (I believe 76?)

My "preferred playstyle" doesn't exist in this game anymore because of your Jobmates' constant whining.

[aiqa]

#snip*

You're the one that is doing all these SCH vs WHM things, in stead of just saying "I want SCH to be like this and that" you're making suggestions for changing mechanics other classes to "fix" your own preferred class.
And then you're attacking players about their opinions about SCH changes, even if they never actually gave their opinion.
So you're doing exactly what you're complaining about, while the people you're attacking are not, and I was pointing that out.
If you can't see that, it's probably time to take a break from the forums wars for a day or two.

[WaxSw]

The saddest part about this?

Nerfing WHM won't fix anything.

It shouldn't be nerfed, period. If they're going to be so stubborn as to completely lock it out of raid DPS buffs, it needs to have a lead in personal DPS roughly proportional to the "selfish DPS" vs "support DPS" dichotomy elsewhere (modified by whatever proportion of DPS'ing time they're assuming).

But breaking off all the bits that don't fit into the WHM-lite mold for every other Healer and then buffing WHM sets a bad precedent for healer identity/diversity going forward.

About the only thing that'd make the outlook gloomier is if they end up nerfing WHM after using "it's underperforming" as an excuse to kill off the other Healer gameplay styles that were previously represented.

Yes you're right devs shouldn't nerf whm, it should be a strong job, the problem is that to make it relevant the devs destroyed the other 2 jobs in terms of performance (ast being more destroyed than sch) and fun. Honestly everything that I and probably most of Sch/Ast are asking for is to have their jobs as viable as whm and to have the interesting and fun mechanics back which I sadly dont see happening (and I hope I'm wrong)