On Healing Hands - A Comprehensive WHM Guide (V2)

I'd wager the hour remaining is the exception and not the norm and most mob pulls just flat out can't kill you like that. Suggesting that shows your bias. I even mentioned the packs that you'd want to stay out of range for and things like Geo will kill everyone if not handled properly. And in the scenario that the GEO isn't pulled properly a smart Melee WHM will get to a safe distance because they understand their responsibility.


20 seconds? Why do you think its just 20 seconds. Furthermore why are you bringing that into a discussion about "Optimal". Even in the situation where its 20 seconds faster, than that is still more optimal lol.

You also have yet to answer any question I've asked, so I'm going to assume you have no answer and are just ignorant.

I wouldn't melee omen bosses, wave3 dyna, master trials, escha HELM or reis t3, or about half of the ambuscades myself.

Further, you're confusing percentage of damage parsed for percentage of time saved. In any fast killing event, the majority of time spent is pulling, swapping targets, waiting for a DPS to accumulate TP to either skillchain or floor the mob. The white damage contributed by a WHM may show up as a few % on a parse, but it will always be a smaller percentage of the run's total time saved than the damage due to this.

Unless you're running really heavy on MNK, you frequently will not reduce the number of WS used prior to mob dying, meaning that despite adding damage you did not actually speed up the kill, just reduced the amount of overkill on the finishing WS.

Optimal does not always mean fastest, most reliable is a component of an optimal run. Having your WHM locking subpar healing weapons, wasting time running between mobs, and potentially eating para/silence/petrify or dying creates significantly more opportunity for failure.

If your group is totally confident in the content, is aware of the gimmicks, and has experience running it.. WHM can melee with little to no detriment in dynamis wave3. That is true. But, it is far from a typical case, and it's still not going to be the difference between winning or losing or reduce the time frame significantly.

Any group who is at risk of timing out in dynamis - D is at that risk because they cannot keep their buffs up or stay engaged. The damage check is pitiful, as illustrated by people completing it in half of the allotted time, with 2/3 the allotted bodies. So, what group is both so smooth that they can afford to let their WHMs slack off, but so slow that they need that extra couple percent of damage to clear in time?

It could be beneficial in ideal circumstances with nothing going wrong, but you're going to be hard pressed to find groups like that. Most of the people apt to use it are complete scrubs who saw some forum tard say they could melee and use it as an excuse to hit things.

Another minor note, you have to melee with yagrush mainhand unless you plan to dump TP on every -na. That's another big damage hit, because WHM certainly can't maintain AM3 enough to make it worthwhile.

Just because you CAN deal damage does not make it OPTIMAL to deal damage. Again, actions lockout other actions in this game, and if you dont deal enough damage compared to the TP youre feeding youre just increasing risk for little gain/reward. Whm meleeing is never optimal by the nature of how the game works. 14 is designed for it to be optimal while unnecessary. In 11 the reward is too little for the added risk to be considered worth it, unless its content thats trivial enough your damage literally doesnt matter anyway.

As much as I usually think you're full of ***, I couldn't have phrased it more succinctly myself. That's all there is to it.

At this age, I highly doubt that the mob will use less TP moves depending on if the WHM melees or not.

When the rate of TP moves stays the same at 100% vs 10%, because of the number of people hitting it changed from 4 to 5 doesn't mean that the 5th person is feeding it more TP. Mobs get 3000 TP much quicker than players do, just in case you didn't know.

Amount of TP moves, no. But amount of TP per move will increase in any 6 man situation (probably not in ally). That can make a difference, because some mob WS clearly scale with TP similar to how ours do.

And on situations where a WHM can melee safely, will any of the increased TP cause a possibility of wipe? Assuming that the WHM is better than Nyaarun that is.

Probably not, but it's pretty subjective without any hard numbers to work with. Your WHM throws out a black halo instead of topping someone off, suddenly that 2000 TP sonic thrust is a 2300 TP sonic thrust and someone is a bit below max HP instead of capped out.

There's a lot of subjective situations where small failures can combine to make bigger problems, and it's pretty damn hard to isolate whether they will or won't happen in a given event.

I think most of my opinions were already covered by someone else at this point (mostly Comeatmebro) but I'll just throw in:

There are things I do on WHM to ensure smooth fights that you simply cannot do while engaged. For example, if the tank loses hate, I like to "/as <stnpc>" to find out who they lost hate to because that person is likely about to be in need of a cure.

I'd suggest Cure IV instead of V. But yes, whether or not that's what he was suggesting, I would suggest that's optimal. Cureskin saves lives, especially in Dyna[D]. If you're meleeing, you definitely don't have the time to constantly scan your front line party members to see who needs a fresh cureskin or has ailments you may not have realized they got.

Your job on WHM isn't to speed the fights up, it's to ensure the fights don't slow down. If anyone ever dies from a death that could've been prevented (even if it would've required a fresh cureskin to survive being one-shotted) then you failed in your duty.

My LS knows I have my eyes glued to them, not split between them and the enemies I'm trying to melee. It gives them confidence to do things they couldn't do with a less attentive WHM. I know this for a fact, I've seen it time and again. It's one of the greatest feelings I get on WHM, seeing someone grow bolder under my watchful eye.

If my lack of melee allows them to use their TP instead of mid-hybrid, or mid-hybrid instead of full hybrid, then that's probably going to add more damage than if I pulled out my clubs and started swinging.

All things are relative. I'm not assuming you're doing anything wrong. I'm not saying you shouldn't be meleeing. Maybe it's a perfect fit for the group you run with. Maybe they're super cautious, and it allows the WHM to throw caution to the wind because the party isn't in real danger. I'm not going to assume you're neglecting your duty, but I'm 100% positive that if I were to try to melee in Dyna[D] or on Ou, with our usual setups and strategies, the results would not be ideal.

It doesnt matter so much whether or not the mob will use less so much as youd see stronger TPs, given mobs get more than 1000 TP as well. And thats not even excluding the risks of being in melee and potential spell lockout.

Comparing melee WHM and melee BRD is honestly really silly.

BRD is actually on some really nice melee gear, their JSE neck is specific for meleeing with QA, pDif+, Store TP. Not to mention, after singing they get 5-10 min of not having to sing again, during which they can do other things depending on strategy and subjob: backup cure, throw erases, land debuffs, or melee, and quite effectively.

WHM melee is a nice fun thing we can situationally do once we're already geared out of our butts, and even then only when we're not too busy spamming spells. WHM does not get anywhere near the same downtime as BRD does, and if we do... then a WHM is probably (with some exceptions) not even needed in the fight, like this month's ambu where if the RUN tank is good and the DDs are quick to kill adds, a SCH can just accession regen5 and go afk, or a GEO/WHM can mail heal np, etc etc.

It's doable, it's fun, it can be effective, but a starter WHM should know that it's not going to be viable for quite a while, and even when it will be, it needs to take a backseat to actual WHM duties. RDM can melee way better than WHM, but even they prioritize haste/refresh/enfeebles over pretty numbers.

Just, stop.

Get your head out of your *** and just stop.

If you suck so much that you are afraid to melee for CP content, then just admit that you suck so much that you can't melee on CP content or anything greater, which is anything with an ilvl associated with it.

Bottom line is, you suck.

The point of meleeing isn't "oh noes we are going to time out if whm doesn't melee" obviously. Its about opening up different playstyle and decision making that's otherwise inaccessible without melee.

Things like shell crusher, more aggressive full cure and mystic boon can be relevant in endgame and being able to melee allows these spells/WS being used more frenquently.

I always believe playstyle/sets are like switches. You turn it on when you need it and vice versa.

So I don't know how the entire discussion turn into speeding up kill time sort of discussion anyways. Its missing the point, imo. SimonSes already nailed it pages ago.

Again, get YOUR head out of YOUR *** and stop putting straw man bs out there. Ive not ONCE talked about not meleeing CP content.

You are advocating not meleeing on all content. I picked the lowest rung of the content ladder.

If you are afraid to melee on the lowest rung of the content ladder (CP parties), then there is no hope for you.

The thing is, you still suck. People can melee on lower to mid-level content and do it quite successfully. Just because you are afraid and advocate others to not do it, using worthless excuses like TP moves, because you feel like DDs die all the time from TP moves, then that shows how much of a WHM you really are.

Get good, son.

Show me de wae, Sensei

Just to spin off this, in Dynamis D the only times I can see a Cureskin actually saving a party is with either Ninja mob, or a Geomancer and both of those can be handled appropriately. I mean even during a Ninja mob you can maybe have the WHM stun(again not sure how brainshaker works, will test when I get a moment) to help handle that. Outside of those few instances I can't recall a time when you could just flat out lose a party member in a single action. I'm actually genuinely curious about specific situations that this is being used because I'd like to apply that to those situations.

Also Melee WHM can utilize Full Cure and has an infinite MP pool to allow for liberal applications of Cureskin if that is required for content. You can also melee and scan, I guess that is more of a personal ability thing though and something that requires practice. I blame the games lack of visibility. I wonder if there is a way to utilize what partybuffs does in a lua to create visual representations on certain buffs you want to track.

That being said, my main point isn't that WHM should be required to Melee, but I think its something that should be considered and not written off as suboptimal, especially in cases where it is optimal. And as I said before, killing something faster is the baseline of optimization whether that involves a WHM cureskining, meleeing or just doing the bareminimum if it results in a faster kill then it would be better.



Probably job dependant but some jobs get incredibly efficient swaps for extra DT. THF/DNC/MNK and heavy DD will be able to put on a great DT set without hurting their DPS that much. Its all relative though and situation dependant. Melee WHM doesn't mean you don't heal either, it does mean you heal the minimum needed to win which could be a lot or a little.


Absolutely, I think this is a pretty potent point. This months ambuscade would be better with a Melee RDM, I'd wager that even a Dancer could easily heal this months ambuscade. To the second point, a WHM not only needs good support sets, they need even better sets to support melee locks and a good lua aswell.

The main justice of melee WHM would be in situations where your full support isn't always needed. Sometimes your barspells, protect and shell are required and sometimes you have a lot of dead time inbetween highly active time. Like Dynamis D, where the Wave 2 Boss and some volte sets you are an intensive healer and other times like melee volte sets, and some wave 3 bosses your required casts are pretty low.

On the BRD vs WHM thing, Its obvious that bard is better but I don't think the gap is as big as implied, which was my point in regards to that.

I don't think you can handle the training. It requires curing on hot coals and casting -nas in the middle of a blizzard.

Again, stop with the straw man bs and exagerrating someone elses statements to argue against a thing never said.

I stated whm cannot reliably melee most major content, and that any content whm can reliably melee is content everyone is already overgeared for and your damage is irrelevant.

Whm meleeing is never optimal, just a fun side thing that increases risk, often for little practical reward (other than bragging rights or removal of boredom, because whm is boring as ***when played optimally and overly stressful at the same time)

In most situations the increased risk is a variable of player skill. I'd actually argue in all situations. If the player still melees when the risk of them dying is high then they clearly aren't playing skillfully.

I explicitly bolded your own words. So, please, continue to cry "strawman." Your tears are delicious.

And you are still advocating not to do it. Again, your words. I even quoted them separately just for you.

Like I said before, you are too afraid to melee as WHM. Fine, we get it. You think you can't handle curing without expressly targeting the person you want to cure. Fine. Still, get good.

That's eliroo's assertion. Even in your statement, the mobs "a WHM can melee in, but shouldn't because they die anyway" wouldn't matter if a WHM melees or not. But don't say a WHM shouldn't melee if they can. It is not up to you on how another person plays their game.

Unless youre going to literally never perform a non cure action, its not entirely relative to player skill. ***happens, things go wrong. Tank gets caught in the single frame theyre in ws set, or dd does, or you do. Things happen. Meleeing increases risk by a non insignificant ammount for no practical gain other than fun.

Hypocrite much?

Or are you talking about meleeing in Wave 3 Dynamis boss? You know, making an argument that nobody is making?

What is the word for that logical fallacy again? Hmm...let me think....

To be fair both myself and Mims have made that argument, but we specifically mentioned pulls where its inadvisable or just not possible.

A good amount of Volte pulls are about as dangerous as a CP mob.

Sorry, I was referring to boss. Nobody cares about lolmobs.

Where in what you quoted does it state "dont melee in cp"? CP is not real content, CP is a chore. No one is arguing anything about CP, youre just strawmanning. Any content worth doing is either too much a risk to be worth meleeing on whm, or so easy the extra damage from whm is irrelevant anyway. There is no content in the game where melee whm is optimal purely by the games design. Arguing otherwise just shows ignorance on what optimal actually is.

I mean there's a slew of them. Eagle Eye Shot, for example. I've even seen some simple weaponskills one-shot DDs in hybrid gear before. Heck, I was on RUN in Dyna this last Friday and took 2k damage from a Volte mob's Mighty Strikes Steel Cyclone with PDT-75%. That would've cooked any DD it hit unless they had a pretty beefy stoneskin. I've also seen a Volte Monk pop Hundred Fists while I was midcast on something else like Regenga, and take a DD down 2k+ HP by the time I can land a Cure on them.

Are those things common? No, I won't say that they are. But my point is: those flukes happen. You can't predict them. If my spamming cureskin for an entire run saves one person from being one-shotted one single time during that run, then to me it's worth it.

Maybe some would say I'm being overly-cautious, but I just see that as my job when I'm on WHM.

Wait, now I have a question for you.

Do you instantly forget your posts after you post them? You go from "all content" to "content worth doing" to "shouldn't do in any content" then define CP parties as non-content, even though you are stating that everyone dies from TP moves anyway, or the "risk is too great" due to TP moves, even from non-content you described earlier.

Are you forgetting your entire argument as you make your argument?

I think That is fair, to each their own playstyle. I think being attentive is always a boon and I totally forgot about RNG mobs.

On the topic of Cureskin though. The BG wiki states it caps out at 300 HP. Is this still true? If so does it cap at 300 before gear bonus or after gear?

CP falls under content so easy the whms damage adds literally nothing, and in some cases would actively hinder CP gain. CP mobs are in short supply and already die in a single skillchain when youre dealing with geared jobs and players, and in the case of undergeared youre likely going to be curing a lot more than your DPS will add anyway, given CP is generally a fresh players first content and often theres no actual tank other than who has hate.