New high level WHM "Hardlight" gear + New JA "Holy Divide"

[Economizer]

I think that this set might be a bit overpowered, but I think SE will need to release updated melee pieces for WHM, especially since it is the only job that isn't seen as having solid DD potential by most. Other jobs that heal or support are allowed to cause damage in some way - or even tank - like BRD, RDM, SCH, and COR all have serious damage potential (whether or not it should be boosted too is another debate), but WHM is pretty much forced to cure only. Every job has, or should have at least two roles, be it support, DD, or tanking. Maybe if WHM's cures weren't half powered vs. Undead, or if Holy and Banish did more and reliable damage, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

If other jobs are ever to expect WHM to teach them the art of Cure V, WHM better have something else they can blatantly do competently, lest we sink back into the days of RDM main heal. Abyssea can only be the endgame focus for so long, and outside Abyssea WHM has some weak points. And lets be honest, we can't buff WHM healing to much more without making cheaper cure spells.

Giving WHM a tank role is probably not ideal, especially while our poor PLD brothers suffer the shame of Abyssea snubbing by the vast majority. Sure, they may have Club A- unjustly, but PLD are still divine magic users and masters of curing just like us. While I won't go into how to "fix" PLD since this is the WHM section (Cover stance/Smite Stance cough), I think a WHM's gear should focus more on the good things SE has given us, and that would be the art of all things blunt force trauma.

I think instead of the proposed JA, WHM should instead get a job trait similar to Occult Acumen, but with Curing (and if SE really loves us, banishing away the undead as well) instead (maybe only active under Afflatus Misery?). If we gained TP for curing, perhaps a more involved melee roll in parties may happen. Maybe if SE makes a Stoneskin like spell that specifically absorbs AOE damage, this would help this roll. As for making mobs not attack the WHM, we have Repose, and hopefully someday, Reposega.

But, back to the point I was trying to make before I trailed off, I would like to see a more melee focused gear set for WHM at some point in the future. Maybe it could focus on Afflatus Misery or something. I still love the Blessed set, but at 99 we'll definitely need an upgrade to it, and more importantly, an upgrade to accessory slots as well. Being one of the four or five jobs snubbed out of Atheling Mantle, but not having the nukes (or summons) that the other snubbed classes have for defending themselves with, for example, sucks. And perhaps WHM should not get the best DD gear in that way, but we need a solid second role, be it tanking or doing damage in some way, like every other job has, and we can't do it without SE's support.

P.S. Please give WHM a Super Hexa Strike WS at 99. You could even make it require full Club merits, I don't care, I'd find a way to cap Club for it. I think it should be called something like Hecto Strikes.

[Aleste]

I knew I've seen (and read) this topic somewhere before...

http://forums.ffxiclopedia.org/viewt...?f=105&t=26982

Anyways, pretty much everything Economizer said is valid. Although, truthfully; the only piece I'd even consider is the incredibly broken feet.

Don't get me wrong, the stats are.... okish (although, as a whole they're overpowered as individual pieces), for melee, but when you consider that when wearing the entire set you'd be TPing at 16% maximum (assuming of course you've got a ninurta sash) with a 340 delay weapon... it's a tad silly.

The 'enhanced' enlight damage would have to be pretty spectacular to be even worth considering; which leads back to overpowered. Although, I do find it mildly random that you've decided to make a setbonus that revolves around en-damage, and the weapon is en-flash...? Really?

(that said, keeping a mob under flash lockdown with a kclub and flash nova is pretty hilarious to watch, however it builds spectacular amounts of hate, which as a whitemage, is the one thing you're trying to avoid)

Though, I don't honestly see the point behind Holy Divide. I can't think of a single situation where I have thought 'You know what I need right about now? Regurgitation'

[Khiinroye]

The JA would probably be better if it were single target rather than AoE. The bind would likely not affect NMs. For normal mobs, it would be fine. For a group of mobs, it would wake them if slept, and low enmity would make for a low duration bind, though with proper timing with a blm, it could be used before a group of mobs wake up to let a blm resleep them. If you are in a group of non-aggressive mobs, the AoE would make the job ability unusable.

Still, if I had to choose between this JA and reviviscence, I'd choose reviviscence.

The flash added effect directly contradicts the set bonus, as a flash proc from the weapon would prevent the enlight damage from auspice. Added effects do not add enmity (see: excalibur). The stats on the hammer are reasonable; it is a lv 95 club, and gambanteinn 85 has only 1 less damage; at 95 it would probably be around mid 80s, while mjollnir will likely be 90-95, The shield would still have to compete with augmented Genbu's, which can have cure potency and cure cast time, as well as its native -10% physical damage taken.

Economizer has a good point about the pants for tanking, so I won't rehash that.

The "enhances enlight" would need to be very significant to give up haste or accuracy from most of the slots. The feet are are flat out broken, with 10% haste, movespeed, and fastcast. That would let you use a 4-6% haste belt, zelus tiara, and either blessed mitts or blessed trousers (+1 with 4% belt) to cap haste. The body seems fine for melee, especially if you can cap haste with other slots. Lose the trousers if you're just DDing, or the hands if you're somehow tanking (no enmity+ means that you're not gaining extra enmity from dealing damage, and you're getting less than other jobs from curing). Depending on the set bonus, af+1 hands might still be better for DD.

Overall, a pretty good start for a hypothetical 90+ set, since we don't know what other options we'll get.

I could be wrong, but I don't think I've ever seen a piece with Fast Cast AND Haste on it.

Homam Cosciales, but that's 3% haste only.

[Merton9999]

I love this gear, KingFury, and your rendering of it is fantastic, as usual. I have no comments on the balance issue since Economizer and Aleste gave great write-ups. I'll just say at 99 I'm not too concerned about balance and overpowering problems - I'd like to see 99 gear for all jobs go in a direction that people would think was overpowered in current context, then just up the new mob difficulty to compensate. Let us mow through the old stuff and take on the new.

I like the concept of Prism Douse. Although, I'm hoping for abilities to be added that require some cooperation, though not overly complicated, between jobs. For example, maybe you could get the same effect if RDM had a "Zombie" type spell that gave the mob some undead properties for a short time period, at least the properties that make the mob weak to divine magic and cure spells. That way the presence of a RDM would allow the WHM to nuke harder.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

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Uhhh... I don't know how long you've been gone ^^ but... /points down


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This.

It's an additional effect light damage, it's not en-light at all, so that set probably would not work. Could do "Enhances "Auspice, or Afflatus: Solace" Effect though which could be the same thing.

That said, I like your set-ish, but the minute a see a complete melee set like that for WHM instead of another actual melee mage is they day I finally leave this game.

[kingfury]

Thanks for all the feedback and opinions guys!

Lots to reply to here:

High Stats:
Yes, I know some things throughout the set look "broken", but if SE would have shown us our level 3 AF3 Empyeran sets and weapons (and lots of the other new high level things we have) way back in 2007 or something, we would have cried the same thing... while drooling and frothing at the mouth lol. As the OP states though, these are just some things I would like to see. The real tweaking would be left to the Devs to really create the ultimate WHM war-mage set in terms of what stats work best together.

For things like the big +10% Haste on the feet, I say it sounds pretty possible considering SE gave out high Haste options per gear slot all around like it was Christmas with recent updates. ^^ I personally think the Devs said, "So what if they easily cap haste with gear? There's a gear cap... Give'em what they want!" WAR's Ravager's feet has +5% on a lvl 81 piece of gear, so scaling that up by 13 levels (Hardlight feet at lvl 94) seems pretty possible to fit 5 more units of haste fairly in there in my thinking.

Set Bonus:
Yep, agreeably so, whatever Auspice + Afflatus Misery produce could be considered an "additional effect" technically speaking, but by definition, isn't that what en-spells are?

• "Enlight"(PLD spell description): Adds light damage to your attacks.
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• "Enaero": Adds Wind damage to your initial attacks.
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• "Auspice" + "Afflatus Misery": Adds Light Elemental damage to each of the White Mage's initial attacks.
This effect acts like a tier II Enspell in terms of damage calculation and activation.(descriptions from wiki)

In any case, this set bonus would indeed bolster the light elemental damage gained through the Auspice + Afflatus Misery combo. Whether it's considered "enlight" or not, I'm not sure, but it sure does function like it is. How much would it boost it? I would hope for a nice boost is all I can say, so that it's pretty noticeable.

Would the additional Flash effect from the hammer negate the enlight damage if it proc'd? Yep. Which I think would be fine since it would act like an automatic built in defense and offense mechanism if this was going on during a slug fest with a monster. You would sacrifice one benefit for another per a melee swing, and once it's proc'd it wouldn't have the possibility of proc'ing again until the blind wears off. The proc rate wouldn't be 100% to be fair, but something fairly high enough to depend on. I would opt that the "Enhances Flash effect" from the shield would at least tack on another 5 seconds to the max unresisted duration of what flash can do currently(12secs).

Holy Divide:
I would like to see this bind effect be something special in terms of it's efficiency to get out of hairy situations that WHMs can find themselves in sometimes. True that it wouldn't really work on NMs in terms of how bind traditionally functions, but similarly to how the bind from Bora Axe came with some new special workings, perhaps this too could have some interesting inner workings that make it more powerful than the standard effect from the spell version. There are times when a WHM just needs some space to catch a quick break from being smacked around to get things back under control, and this would be that quick JA to do just that.

But curing weakness would definitely win over this though lol... and anything else for that matter!

Fighting with full set on:
I didn't count out the fact that there's a couple of spells that a WHM would stack on top of this set that would help it out if they chose to melee in it. The other accessory gear slots could help when making multiple modes to function with this gear. I really want a set that would be awesome in itself, and if one chose to select single pieces from it. There will always be individual pieces that outshine set pieces I think since this game revolves around situational equipment. Auspice for one would help with the lack of accuracy so long as you keep it up and running if your worried about the lack thereof. I would personally still swap out certain pieces for Hexa though (mostly would swap out the accessory slots), and swap back in for the security and benefits. If the Devs threw in my suggested "Prism Douse" from the OP as well, the set bonus would see another nice little boost based on the reduced resistance to Light elemental stuff.

I suppose "Over powered" could be easy to peg on this set as we are now, but I'm hoping to see great things in the future in terms of gear, weapons, JA's, and the monsters we'll be facing around these higher levels. Heck, for all we know this could be too weak come 99! ^^ /

Thanks again for all the comments and feedback.

[Rya]

I think you could safely spread the haste out and put more on it. We need the same stats for efficient DD as everyone else does, and that means Haste can outperform Accuracy even at poor hit rates like 75% (depending on how much haste/acc you're comparing in a given slot).

The DD's mostly got higher haste than that on empy armor, ranging from 12% (DRG, WAR) to 16/17% (THF, NIN) and they have much easier access to several better(or equal) belt options:

WHM: Ninurta > Goading > Swift > Headlong
DD's: Twilight / Accursed / Bullwhip > Speed/Velo/Sonic (Cirque) > (see above)
--also brown/black for MNK

...so basically, you could spread out 15% (or slightly more?) on this set to encourage more mixing/matching, and not be broken.
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I just like the style. I wish we got more combat-ready-looking armor, as it is our most effective stuff is Royal Uglygoat or Golly Saio, blesseds, tatsumaki pajamapants, wallyhat, and zelus larryking mask. Reverend Mail is okay, but not always the best choice ... and still looks dumb when you wear wallyhat with it!

Backpiece was Bellicose until Resilient Mantle, which barely rivals Amemet Mantle/+1. They should keep up this trend, by giving us actual melee pieces, just with slightly less-competitive stats. Like at 99, we could have stuff comparable to Homam (haste+acc) or other lv.75 "real DD" gear. By then, those real DD's won't feel slighted 'cause they'll have way better stuff. But for us, it'll be a huge upgrade. :)

[Bubeeky]

I really love this idea, I would totally wear the set 100% of the time, no lie...btw King I love your artwork...the grinning taru at the end made me lol and get a few strange looks here lol

[kingfury]

I really love this idea, I would totally wear the set 100% of the time, no lie...btw King I love your artwork...the grinning taru at the end made me lol and get a few strange looks here lol

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/kneel ^^ Thanks for the feedback and compliments! /salute Sorry for getting you strange looks ><; lol

My WHM would full time it as well! ^^ An intimidating WHM? ‹Yes please!›

[Leonlionheart]

well the stats on the gear are completely broken. 10% haste on feet? seriously? That would be totally abused rather than allowing you to full time the set.

I like the idea though, because WHM DD is actually pretty fun.

However there's no way that SE will take the job in that direction.