Quote Originally Posted by Rilifane View Post
The answer for what is meta and why is usually lacking a lot of nuance.
With this, I totally agree.

But the reason WHM is so non-meta is it doesn't win any of those arguments. SGE does comparable DPS to WHM while also offering additional benefits; and is arguably about as easy to play once you get how it works. AST does comparable healing to WHM while also offering additional benefits. SCH does comparable damage and comparable healing to WHM while also offering additional benefits.

This varies during the tier and based on gear, but WHM's personal damage is not significantly greater ENOUGH to make up for the difference. You always want at least one mitigator early in the tier because of lower ilevels and that raidwides now seem tuned to where they do absolutely one-shot the weak Jobs (Healers and Casters) outright if not mitigated. This pretty much guarantees you will want at least one of SCH, SGE, or in a pinch, AST. Because of all its benefits, SCH is pretty much the in demand choice if you can get your hands on one. After that, AST is the only one that does significantly less damage than WHM. Because SGE does comparable damage, SGE is actively competing with WHM for the non-SCH spot in early gear levels. And as people gear up and AST buffs become more powerful, AST moves up into that competition since its raid damage contribution is now competitive or better than WHM and SGE's bulk damage.

Right now on the forbidden site for P5S, WHM, despite being the most played overall, is the least represented at the top end. SCH/AST is still the meta, with SCH/SGE being an entirely functional alternative.