Quote Originally Posted by Renathras View Post
No, it's not really that. WHM hasn't always been shafted, per se. WHM in ShB was one of the stronger healer options in vacuum. The problem is it continues to not have buffs in a game where the meta is always chasing buffs.
That seems an overly constrained way to look at the situation. If you could get the same effect, as a party, as having those buffs without actually needing those discrete actions... there'd be no real issue.

That's not to say WHM should never get buffs (though I do hope they won't be more hit-on-CD <5% dmg amp raidbuff garbage), but neither is their presence or lack the delineating factor.

Moreover, the reason for WHM's leading value in certain fights in ShB wasn't anything to do with its supportive kit or even its sustained DPS, but simply because it could cleave adds with a banked Misery. It, in those rare cases, actually offered a potential net advantage in features over other healers.

You can see a similar situation with MCH. In a vacuum, MCH was fine. In an average party, a skilled MCH would bring more DPS than a DNC or BRD's buffs would. But the meta said it was trash anyway.
When are we talking here? In Endwalker before the latest wave of buffs, MCH's rDPS (which already includes DNC/BRD buffs' value) was far enough behind DNC and BRD at over the 50th percentile that their advantage in aDPS (i.e., how well they could exploit raidwide buffs) wasn't about to make up for it.

Assuming you had a player with equal skill in practice on any of the three jobs, it'd be in the party's favor at that time for them not to take MCH, even before accounting for the further advantage in non-rDPS utility DNC and BRD hold over MCH.