WHM Have NO Natural Refresh Capability, WHY?

[Wolfe]

Allow me to break this down into nice little categories for everyone.

Cura II
As if the first spell didn't suck enough already, now you add in Cura II. Wouldn't have been too bad of a spell if you could target people outside of your party, then it would ALMOST make sense to have it. All Cura is, is an under powered Curaga. And no, it does not matter if Afflatus Misery is up or not, the spell still sucks. Being able to cure 100+ HP, ONLY if you have sustained sufficient damage and ONLY to yourself makes it stupid. Guess what? White Mages are NOT supposed to sustain damage. Hence why there is enmity down armor. Curaga may take up a little bit more MP, but the amount of HP recovered is more stable and reliable than Cura AND you can cast it on other people instead of having to run down to the DD's and put yourself in harms way. Which ALSO makes Cura useless because in a pinch, I am going to throw out a Curaga spell first (especially to wake other sleeping teammates!), that way I do not have to worry about accidentally moving and interrupting my spell casting (which seldom happens for me, but happens quote often if you are not used to playing the job). I am a seasoned White Mage, I have been playing it for 6+ years. Cura is a joke. Care to guess what that makes Cura II?

Refresh II
Because Red Mages everywhere were upset about Battery Charge being too powerful, now they get Refresh II and guess what? You are boosting the effect of Battery Charge to make it more powerful still. While White Mages STILL have no natural ("natural" means the job by itself with no subjob or other item/equipment) refresh capability. Every single mage job in the game (any job that uses MP naturally) has some form of natural refresh. Let me count the ways:

Natural Forms of Refresh (or otherwise saving MP)

* White Mage: Nothing
* White Mage: Devotion (Oh wait, that gives MP to OTHER people... yeah no MP for WHM)

* Black Mage: Aspir (May not be much, but its something)
* Black mage: Manafont (2HR, unlimited MP)
* Black Mage: Clear Mind V (May not be refresh, but sure helps a lot when healing. Originally not given to WHM or SMN at 75, they have to wait the longest, why?)

* Red Mage: Convert
* Red Mage: Refresh
* Red Mage: Refresh II (That's right, 3 forms of MP recovery while most jobs have 1, maybe 2)

* Paladin: Auto-Refresh (May not be much, but PLD do not have much MP to begin with)
* Paladin: Chivalry (Converts TP to MP)

* Dark Knight: Aspir
* Dark Knight: Aspir II (Still beats nothing)

* Bard: Mages Ballad (Does not even use MP naturally and they have a form of Refresh)
* Bard: Mages Ballad II (I understand, support job, fine. But they still have Refresh)
* Bard: Mages Ballad III (Really?)

* Summoner: Auto-Refresh (May not be much, but helps when no Avatar is out)
* Summoner: Elemental Siphon (Which has also received a boost)
* Summoner: Clear Mind V (Same as stated for BLM)
* Summoner: Diabolos + Avatar's Favor (May not recover much for the SMN, but helps everyone else and was made stronger in a recent update)
* Summoner: Perpetuation Cost going down past level 75, that will make the above combination much more useful.

* Blue Mage: Battery Charge
* Blue Mage: Diffusion + Battery Charge = Refreshga
* Blue Mage: Auto-Refresh (Numerous ways to obtain this)

* Corsair: Evoker's Roll (Again, another support job, but they at least still have it as an option)

* Dancer: Aspir Samba (Not really a support job in the same sense that BRD & COR are, but still has some form of refresh)
* Dancer: Aspir Samba II (Thanks for 2 forms, that they don't need. And when are mages going to melee anyway? That makes this useful to PLD & DRK, assuming they don't want Haste instead)

* Scholar: Sublimation (Up to 25% of Max HP restored to MP, without merits)
* Scholar: Light/Dark Arts (Helps save 10% of MP, not a refresh)
* Scholar: Clear Mind V (Third job to have this)
* Scholar: Strategems (More ways to save MP, even though no refresh)
* Scholar: Manifestation + Aspir = Lots of MP back (great in large sleeping crowds)

What to Give White Mages
How about Reviviscence? WHM are already the kings of "ga" spells, right? Why not Stoneskinga, Aquaveilga, Blinkga, give some power back to and potency back to WHM? Hastega? Hey, you already gave it to Garuda, why not give it to a WHM so that it can NOT suck horribly? If a BLU uses Diffusion, they can cast an AOE Haste that is MUCH more potent than a WHM Haste (something else that now sucks). Clear Mind V at a lower level? Since they have NO refresh ability, they should have the highest Clear Mind in the game. Ooh, how about Clear Mind VI? No, that would make too much sense. Can't have that now, can we? Then people might actually think you care about your fans and don't want to royally screw over WHM, like you have been doing for years. I'll be the first person to admit it, I'm biased towards WHM. But come on, Cure VI is crap (its less efficient than Cure II). Cura I & II are a slap in the face of WHM everywhere. The only good thing you have done for WHM since I have been playing is Afflatus Solace. Misery is useless unless you are soloing/DD'ing and pop up Auspice for Light damage to try and make your lolddwhm less of a joke. Oh man, give a WHM Razed Ruins and let them Hexa Strike and it can out parse Randgrith 1,000 times over.

Conclusion
Please explain to me how this is fair to White mages? And do not say that Cure VI means anything because after using it in battle, Cure V is FAR more efficient, especially to the MP conserving WHM. Cure VI should be a FULL heal for the amount of MP consumed. Almost double the MP consumed, but the amount of HP healed more than a Cure V is about... 50-75 HP, total. Thanks, but I'll toss out two Cure V, suck up the extra 47 MP, heal almost twice the amount of HP and save on enmity since Cure V builds as much hate as a Cure III and Cure VI builds slightly more than a Cure IV. When you balance everything out, White Mage got tossed into the water of Kazham and, let's face it, like every GM knows, that is where the Galka bath. And that's just not right.

To those who wish to comment
Only comment if you ACTUALLY play WHM. Do not tell me to /SCH or /RDM if I want refresh because that defeats the whole purpose of a "Natural" Refresh. It is already mandatory to /SCH for every veteran WHM out there. I know a lot of other people like to /RDM for Convert and Refresh (and Fast Cast). WHM should be concentrating on conserving MP as much as possible because there currently is no Natural Refresh. Sublimation and Light Arts are what most WHM should have up. In the long run, it is more reliable to have MP available without having to waste time curing yourself. A Cure V (or Cure VI if you insist) cast on a WHM that converted is time wasted that could be spent curing a teammate in a dire situation.

[Effilil]

WHM gets 2 native refresh abilities, with 2 major flaws...both are club weapon skills that give 1/9th clubskill in mp, which means you get 37 mp back as a base (there are a couple modifiers such as tp) and no one really lets or wants whm to melee in a party, so you can't use them
I agree with you about Afflatus Misery...I only use it macroe'd in with Esuna (which isn't as good as it should be, it should be able to remove all status ailments except weakness). Solace is the best thing to happen to whm, and I keep it up almost all the time as whm
in terms of usefulness, it seems to me that Sch was built to remove us poor whm from the game...all we really have going for us is -ga and teleports, and they've almost totally removed the need to hire a whm for teleports
Haste 2, Hastega, other buffga spells, and fixing the bar spells so they actually are worth casting would be great additions to whm, even if they don't give us a native refresh ability (which I have wondered why whm doesn't get one since I started playing...it doesn't make sense)
Whm is also the only job to not get any decent boosts in several updates...the latest insult? a job trait that speeds up casting for ailment recovery spells. useful? yes, needed? not really since those spells have short casting times anyway. the best part about it is that it shortens the recast timer
Whm really does need some decent boosts...almost everything a whm is needed for can be done by other jobs using /whm now, which is leaving us poor whm behind
I also wouldn't mind some sort of boost to whm DD, some sort of trait or abilities that could lend whm to actually being wanted to melee for more than ws procs in aby
last point...if whm main weapon is a club, why is the cure potency weapon a staff?

I started out as a whm, and still use it actively...I'm usually main healer in my endgame linkshells because I'm just so experienced as a whm

[Rya]

Such anger! I like it! Now use it for KILLAGE! MWAHAHAHA!!

Mystic Boon is what WHMs get. It's mega-huge. And as if that weren't enough, we got Dagan for guaranteed returns (though they might be smaller).

[Wolfe]

Such anger! I like it! Now use it for KILLAGE! MWAHAHAHA!!

Mystic Boon is what WHMs get. It's mega-huge. And as if that weren't enough, we got Dagan for guaranteed returns (though they might be smaller).

WHM are NOT supposed to be a DD job, so how do they get TP? Whats more, unless you have ACTUALLY leveled your club skill, how are you going to hit the mob and GET TP? The theory behind that being a great way to get MP back is flawed, severely, which is why I left it out completely. You can not get MP back if your club skill is not leveled, you need a decent club to begin with and the best healing boost weapons are staves. Which you ALSO need to skill up if you want to be able to effectively use Spirit Taker.

[Flyinghippress]

WHM are NOT supposed to be a DD job, so how do they get TP? Whats more, unless you have ACTUALLY leveled your club skill, how are you going to hit the mob and GET TP? The theory behind that being a great way to get MP back is flawed, severely, which is why I left it out completely. You can not get MP back if your club skill is not leveled, you need a decent club to begin with and the best healing boost weapons are staves. Which you ALSO need to skill up if you want to be able to effectively use Spirit Taker.

A good WHM in Abyssea will have club skill leveled to proc Blue!! with Hexa Strike so this argument doesn't really hold up.

I personally never have an MP issue as WHM/RDM inside or outside of Abyssea. I used to always just /SCH before cap rose and I do still think it's a good sub but I just prefer the mindless casting of Refresh and not having to worry about a sublimation being dispelled (used to happen to me a lot).

Edit: And my best guess to answer your question is that up until the game got turned into Easy-mode there was still a need to keep people taking time to level up. Longer they take to level up the longer they play, the more money they make. The more you have to rest the more time it takes. Having a RDM or BRD in the party was always standard to make sure resting time was lowered. This forced some sense of teamwork (SE's premise for FFXI) essentially rewarding you for doing what they wanted you to do.

[Wolfe]

A good WHM in Abyssea will have club skill leveled to proc Blue!! with Hexa Strike so this argument doesn't really hold up.

I personally never have an MP issue as WHM/RDM inside or outside of Abyssea. I used to always just /SCH before cap rose and I do still think it's a good sub but I just prefer the mindless casting of Refresh and not having to worry about a sublimation being dispelled (used to happen to me a lot).

Edit: And my best guess to answer your question is that up until the game got turned into Easy-mode there was still a need to keep people taking time to level up. Longer they take to level up the longer they play, the more money they make. The more you have to rest the more time it takes. Having a RDM or BRD in the party was always standard to make sure resting time was lowered. This forced some sense of teamwork (SE's premise for FFXI) essentially rewarding you for doing what they wanted you to do.

Actually, it still holds up. If you have club leveled enough to proc blue, you are NOT going to melee on the mob and feed it TP. If you do, you are an idiot. You will pop a wing or have a regain atma on for TP or, heaven forbid, have a SAM feed you TP. Which leads me right back to where I was, HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET MP?

If all you are doing is proc'ing blue, how do you get MP back? Mystic Boon, right? Oh, wait, that's right, you don't use it because you are just there to proc blue. BUT, MP in Abyssea is not an issue. I am talking about outside Abyssea (that still exists, right?). Even though not many people like to do stuff outside Abyssea, there are still some dedicated players that want to complete the rest of the game.

Anyway, you are missing the point of this thread. WHM have no natural refresh and never have. Before and after Abyssea, there is STILL no refresh. Why have they still not addressed the issue? Pre-level 80 increase, you could truly see how screwed WHM got. Now you can finally see that they are "trying" to fix WHM because they realize that they have no way to get MP back, save for lolddwhm'ing. Everyone knows that you can grab a support job and get some kind of MP recovery. But I want to know why WHM by itself can not refresh. If WHM could get some form of natural refresh, it would be great to see what you could do with different support jobs. Because as of right now, all WHM gets to sub is RDM for convert and refresh, SCH for sublimation and light arts, and BLM if you are really bored and want Warp II access. I suppose you could sub SMN for avatars for S&G's.

And the point of "easy mode" for FFXI was that they were trying to break the game so that people would hate it and switch over to FFXIV. Thus why they didn't release just another 5 levels, they are releasing everything they have been holding back for their "rainy day." But after realizing that FFXIV bombed so hardcore, now they have to work on making FFXI NOT suck and are having a hell of a time doing it. I'm still waiting for them to release Rank 15, it's already in the data files, and has been for years.

[Rya]

WHM are NOT supposed to be a DD job, so how do they get TP? Whats more, unless you have ACTUALLY leveled your club skill, how are you going to hit the mob and GET TP? The theory behind that being a great way to get MP back is flawed, severely, which is why I left it out completely. You can not get MP back if your club skill is not leveled, you need a decent club to begin with and the best healing boost weapons are staves. Which you ALSO need to skill up if you want to be able to effectively use Spirit Taker.

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I think SE gave us Boon/Dagan ... to encourage us to get creative and open-minded. You can't melee everything, but BLM&DRK can't aspir everything. When you -CAN- take full advantage of these WS's, the returns on them are gamebreakingly good! We're talking filling your MP bar way more often than a RDM can convert, inside or outside Abyssea.

Don't get me wrong, I think it would be spiffy to see a "Panaloon Mastery" trait that gave us the Orison-Pantaloons-style cash back rewards on qualifying MP purchases (Converts x% of "Cure" amount to MP) or something.

But, you should at least try killaging before you write it off as useless or irrelevant or whatever. It's really fun and efficient, if you can adapt your playstyle.

[Wolfe]

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I think SE gave us Boon/Dagan ... to encourage us to get creative and open-minded. You can't melee everything, but BLM&DRK can't aspir everything. When you -CAN- take full advantage of these WS's, the returns on them are gamebreakingly good! We're talking filling your MP bar way more often than a RDM can convert, inside or outside Abyssea.

Don't get me wrong, I think it would be spiffy to see a "Panaloon Mastery" trait that gave us the Orison-Pantaloons-style cash back rewards on qualifying MP purchases (Converts x% of "Cure" amount to MP) or something.

But, you should at least try killaging before you write it off as useless or irrelevant or whatever. It's really fun and efficient, if you can adapt your playstyle.

I am not writing it off as useless or irrelevant, WHM are squishy jobs and not meant to DD. That does not mean that you can not DD. I have a friend that is an amazing DDWHM, him and another friend used to run around as RDM & WHM and duo stuff all the time, the WHM was the tank and DD (I know, when you look at the jobs you kind of wonder why the RDM was not the DD). He was a great DDWHM and I am actually working on gearing a DDWHM myself, just because it is fun. WHM will never be able to put out the kind of damage that the real DD jobs can, but it is still fun.

But I still stand by my previous statement, WHM need a natural refresh. They do not have one and I believe that if they did, the job would have so many other possibilities. I know I could use a few WS to recover MP, but if you are going DDWHM, you are trading off a lot of damage for a chance to recover some MP and even then, not that much. If you choose the right mob, yeah you can refill your MP nicely. But it is a crap shoot that is not worth the effort when you can just get a friend to kill the mob in a 1/10th of the time. And unless you have your club skill capped (or close to), you are not going to put out any damage and fighting mobs is going to be insanely slow.

I have a pretty decently geared DDWHM and even a DRG75 with gimp gear can out DD me and usually kill at least 3 times the mobs (tested with a few lolafdrg75). Yes, WHM can DD and recover MP. But in the amount of time that it takes to kill a mob, you might as well just quit.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

WHM Have NO Natural Refresh Capability, WHY?

Because we WHMs aren't complainers like PLDs or we'd already have auto refresh.

[Wolfe]

Because we WHMs aren't complainers like PLDs or we'd already have auto refresh.

Maybe not complainers, but I sure as hell am a whiner. I want refresh. I love my refresh atmas but there is a whole world outside of Abyssea and my atmas don't seem to work there. Every mage job in the game has some way to recover MP, except for WHM. Complainers or not, I want to know why SE has yet to give us some kind of refresh.