Scholar v. White MageFollow

Don't know as we haven't gotten a hands on test yet. For all we know the fairy could be limited to "master" healer only. That would limit its ability to contribute to the group, yet it could also free up the Scholar to focusing on the group and barely having to think about his/her own health.

(SE requested xivb.com to take down post P3 datamined abilities/etc. so we can't obviously check it at this time anyway.)

I like how Arcanist/Scholar has the damage mitigation bonus on the side. It reminds me a bit of the cure-skin in FFXI. Only this time, instead of WHM getting all of the healing tools, WHM gets the big cure spells while a different healer class gets the smaller cure spells with the damage mitigation.

@Hyrist and Grandmomma

Yeah I just went to look when you suggested it. I didn't get a chance to tinker with a Chocobo companion in P3 so not sure if you can direct the pet where to go. However, if you can command the pet and choose it's Embrace target that even further solidifies an already incredibly solid healer class into one that's even better. And AoE Regen's going to be incredible for splash damage style mechanics.

This is an excellent post, and really summarizes why scholar can and will be an effective healing class on par with whm. When I read through the abilities, all I could say was wow, they did a great job of balancing this class with whm, yet making it unique enough that there wasn't much overlap. The whole shield concept on top of heals is very well thought out and I can see being crucial in certain fights. I'm very excited to see how both classes compare once release hits... and this is coming from someone who has never roled a healer in an mmo ever.

Once open beta starts, I am sure it will take at least 3 days and we will know how effective the SCH is.

I also wanted to play a healer but WHM was not really appealing to me, so once I am done with BLM I am off to SCH.

Abilities crossed out are either moot/wash or can be shared cross class (Stoneskin and Cure as .dat mining showed before they were "taken down"). Plus, you're giving WHM too much credit in terms of raw number of heals.

First of all, you're going to using Cure as your filler, Cure II when you get that proc, and Cure III if you get a proc from Cure III or if you absolutely have to blow a lot of mana at once. You have two different AoE spells of different potency but ultimately you'll more than likely use Medica II because of the reduction of potency to Medica II in P4 (it's down to 200 potency now with a 100 regen --- more mana than Medica for the same healing except that 33% of that's converted into a HoT).

So you're down to Cure with 400 potency post-adjustments ( on a tiered proc system ) versus Succor with 300 potency (100% shield for 100% of the amount that would have been cured -- this is the important part) and Succor beats the pants off of Cure. Period. 300 potency with a 300 potency shield is a total of 600 potency effective healing and last time I checked that beats the pants off of a 400 potency heal. That's also not considering that Arcanist is listed as being able to slot Cure for pre-Succor healing.

Effective healing is what matters, not what the raw amount is. A Cure for 800 is *not* better than a Succor for 600 with a 600 shield.

Medica I with 300 potency post-adjustment and Succor II with 150 potency with equivalent shield are literally equal. Medica II with 200 upfront and 100 regen later is the same potency. All three AoE healing spells are equal (unless Succor II crits and then it wins hands down with the double shield effect).

So that least Stoneskin versus the 20% ground effect reduction. Stoneskin's nice for the pull and then as of P3 wasn't worth bothering with behind due to the cast time, mana cost, and relatively little it cures for. If it were an instant cast it would be worth weaving in during high mana situations but it currently isn't.

WHM has Regen which is still a piddly 150 potency post adjustments going in P4. If you've got a 100 base cure (potency 100) that's still only 150 health across the 18 second duration (6 ticks, 25 a tick with a high mana cost). Sounds OK in theory and it is but it's not worth casting for what you could do with a single cure cast. Cast time is the same, so which sounds more worth your time -- the 400 cure or 250 over 18 seconds for double or triple the mana cost? Regen either needs a reduction in mana cost or a massive potency boost to actually become useful.

So that least Benediction (6 minute cooldown) versus an instant (with a 1 second GCD mind you) cure for 20% of a target's health. Bene's nice for a "O SH--" moment and that's about it. Lustrate is more than likely going to be too expensive to spam so that's not really that impressive either but it's still more useful.

~~~

No, I don't see a support healer and a main healer. I see two almost identically powerful healers that work fine in all roles. I see one with a larger toolkit that's extremely situational and I see one with a smaller toolkit that's refined and useable almost all the time.

This is FFXIV, not FFXI 2.0; stop trying to push WHM as the only real healer. The kind of game FFXIV is built to be doesn't support only one "main healer" like FFXI did (and did terribly).

Oh, and this was all without even bothering with the Fairy. I'm literally talking pure White Mage healing versus pure Scholar (master only) healing. Just looking at the numbers, actually looking at them and reading what they're saying, shows both can heal equally well but Scholar's abilities with the shield has the greater potential for the higher effective healing output.

Edited, Aug 3rd 2013 11:24pm by Viertel

That's really not going to matter.

I'm assuming it just looks at your healing result and doubles the number, but If Succor doesn't count overhealing, all it means is that the SCH uses Cure to top off. Really not any kind of issue at all.

What actually matters regarding the barrier is "What kind of damage can the barrier stop?"



I think you're pigeon-holing the wrong jobs into the roles here.

With what's been demonstrated for SCH so far, SCH appears to be designed to mitigate how fast incoming damage comes in. It's pretty similar to Rift's Purifier soul. WHM, on the other hand, is big numbers. The damage is done, so fix the problem, so to speak. The only way you're going to get any mileage out of that Succor barrier is on a target constantly taking damage. Otherwise you may as well just use Cure.

You make some good points Ravashack, and you're right, assuming MP and cast times aren't any less efficient, Succor is better put to use healing a tank (I suppose this is SE's idea of poking at us Paladins who used to have Holy Succor.) That said, my point still remains about how Succor overwrite works. If we assume that like stoneskin it doesn't stack, then in a large raid situation, if 2 healers are needed on the tank, it'd be best to have 1 SCH and 1 WHM, 2 SCHs would be overwriting eachother's barriers in many cases.

For an 8 man, putting SCH's abilities to use primarily healing the tank is probably the best bet. MP efficiency, cast speed, and how the secondary mechanics work remain to really determine which is outright better.

The problem with min/maxing is this... only maybe 5% of players are actually good enough, and efficient enough to be in that category, but once they do, everyone thinks that's the only way to do things when in reality after that 5% player ability becomes a much much greater factor in success. A top tier world first guild might kill a boss using one class over another because it allowed a 1% damage increase over another, and when racing against other world first quality guilds that might matter, but unless you're in that tier you've already lost that minor advantage.

So yea, I'm sure someone will do the math, someone will have a spreadsheet that shows if both classes are played perfectly over a long fight, one is greater than the other, and then the community will parrot that, but in reality as long as the numbers are close both classes will be essentially equal for 95% of the playerbase.

A small break from the discussions going on: Fairy screenshots and AF on all races

That's fine if you believe that, but I don't so let's just agree to disagree. If you had any facts other than touting an opinion, maybe you'd be able to persuade me. I agree if Yoshi can retain the balance, this won't be an issue. Let's hope that's the case so we never have to deal with this scenario.

Player of the job>the job itself

That is what will tell you which is better. All depends on the skill level of the player playing the class.