SCH need buffs

[Sighearth]

As the title says, SCH is currently the worst healer by a big margin. It is the worst healer in terms of raid dps and healing wise. If you take a look at this tier (eden's verse) and past tier (eden's gate), and sort by rdps and hps you will see how far behind schs are in comparison to whm and ast. Realistically, you dont need shields to survive almost anything anymore (since SE removed vitality melds), in the rare instances that you do need, AST can use neutral sect which is way more GCD efficient. Pair that AST with a whm, both with regens and raid dps over the roof. Unlike ast's plethora of free healing ogcds and whm's alliviated dps loss healing gcds, sch best and true free healing ogcd is recitation and fairy heals (with pet tax and currently pretty weak). So basically, sch have nothing to bring to the table and its worse in doing what the other 2 healers do. PS: Deployment tactics is never used now and its complete garbage.

What could be done? I think the solution would be to have sch a niche again, sch used to be GOD because of their extra ogcds heals which other healers have catch up with now. SCH can either bring massive rdps with a huge buff to its personal dps or chain (or combination of both) with lackluster healing. OR they could bring massive ogcd heals with buffs to current ogcd and fairy so the whm+ sch comp is competitive with ast+ whm. That way sch can free whm up to pratically only glare all fight.

Anyway, I dont think there is an easy way to solve this, however schs are in dire need of some love right now.

[Billythepancake]

In terms of HPS and rDPS, SCH is fine, imo. At the end of the day SOMEONE has to be bottom b****, you buff SCH and now WHMs are complaining they're at the bottom, you buff WHM and now ASTs (both of them) are complaining they're bottom, etc etc, never ending cycle. SCH does it's job well enough and it is by no means a hindrance to your team. It heals enough and provides enough damage you won't struggle with DPS checks. Hell, AST, despite being the top healer by a pretty wide margin atm, is tied for least played class in the game.

Balance wise, the healers are fine enough, at least in my opinion, what I don't think is fine is how they play. SCH/WHM are boring as hell with nothing to do but spam glare/broil, and AST has a card system that I'm sure is to give me carpal tunnel (which is probably why only 10 people play that class) unfortunately those issues aren't so easy to fix as just changing a few numbers, so I doubt we'll see them this expansion.

[Sighearth]

In terms of HPS and rDPS, SCH is fine, imo. At the end of the day SOMEONE has to be bottom b****, you buff SCH and now WHMs are complaining they're at the bottom, you buff WHM and now ASTs (both of them) are complaining they're bottom, etc etc, never ending cycle. SCH does it's job well enough and it is by no means a hindrance to your team. It heals enough and provides enough damage you won't struggle with DPS checks. Hell, AST, despite being the top healer by a pretty wide margin atm, is tied for least played class in the game.

Balance wise, the healers are fine enough, at least in my opinion, what I don't think is fine is how they play. SCH/WHM are boring as hell with nothing to do but spam glare/broil, and AST has a card system that I'm sure is to give me carpal tunnel (which is probably why only 10 people play that class) unfortunately those issues aren't so easy to fix as just changing a few numbers, so I doubt we'll see them this expansion.

I do agree, someone has to be the worst. I think what threw sch into the fire was the neutral sect. You have a pocket sch shields that you use when you need it, for the rest of the time you are better. Even if sch stay the worst, I think its possible to tighten this gap, either for the dps side or for the healing side a bit more.

[Jaelommiss]

AST/SCH is highest combined damage for 5, 6, and 7 by every metric other than 95th percentile in E7 and 100th percentile. In E8 both AST/SCH and AST/WHM are extremely close at all performance levels. SCH/WHM combined dps underperforms compared to AST comps.

SCH has incredible synergy with AST. By letting the AST go diurnal, the SCH increases the party's raidwide oGCD healing potency by 750 per minute. This drastically reduces the amount of GCD healing required and more than makes up for the lower individual performance.

SCH occupies both top and bottom combined dps of the three comps. AST is the top two. WHM is the bottom two.

The solution, then, is to introduce synergy between WHM and SCH to make that comp more competitive. This could be either a WHM trait that helps SCH more than AST, or a SCH trait that helps WHM more than AST. The best I can think of right now is a buff to GCD healing spells (either placed on a player or an aura) to the amount of GCDs required, or something that allows GCD heals to increase the potency of damage spells. Both seems rather hamfisted and I'm not terribly comfortable with either. Whatever is done, it needs to be less effective when paired with AST to prevent AST/SCH from getting even better.

[Mhaeric]

Isn't there another thread with this exact topic on the main page already?

SCH is just fine.

[Saefinn]

IMO SCH heals too well (but not just SCH), at least outside of raid progression, but trying to refine balance too much is probably why we have duller healing jobs as is. I’ve not heard SCH being detrimental to a group’s progression, so it shouldn’t matter where it is. I might see argument for DPS buffs, as rDPS is the main metric used, if a SCH has a harder time healing versus WHM but can still contribute well enough, that to me is just a variation in job difficulty, which I am all for.

[Risvertasashi]

"worst healer"

[Sighearth]

"worst healer"

If you take a closer look in this data you will see two funny things. The first is: The MEDIAN of the combined rDPS of ast + sch is 256 higher than ast + whm but ast + whm have 10k logs while ast + sch have 4.6k. What would happen if the comp ast+whm did not have more than double the logs than the other comp hm. If you take a look at the MAX category which is maximum rdps recorded, guess who is higher? ast + whm. The second thing is: even double ast is better than whm + sch. So yea worst healer

[Risvertasashi]

If you take a closer look in this data you will see two funny things. The first is: The MEDIAN of the combined rDPS of ast + sch is 256 higher than ast + whm but ast + whm have 10k logs while ast + sch have 4.6k. What would happen if the comp ast+whm did not have more than double the logs than the other comp hm. If you take a look at the MAX category which is maximum rdps recorded, guess who is higher? ast + whm. The second thing is: even double ast is better than whm + sch. So yea worst healer

1. You and everyone else that frets over the "max" category need to understand that a sample size of 1 is not valid/meaningful for any kind of comparison.

2. 2x AST is not better than SCH + WHM. Doubling up on any healer is worse than any mixed composition.

The only thing that's accurate about what you wrote is is WHM and SCH have poor synergy. But if you give a hard buff to SCH, it will become dominant again. As is, SCH+AST is the most efficient combination but other compositions are popular to play. This is balanced, or at least far more than your proposed alternative. I'm sorry SCH isn't as OP as it was for the previous 6 years, but it is not a bad healer.

[deadman1204]

Hasn't SCH been the best/op healer for almost the entire history of the game? Only change is that now with ShB they are close to even with the other 2 (but still the best healer)?