unbalanced?

[Economizer]

I would have joined the Cure V train years ago, not expecting the people who developed the bag of lemons that was the 76-99 spells/abilities to pull off anything more creative to bump up light arts tasks.

I remember a few years ago when everyone at the time was begging for Cure V, and the main justification was Cure VI. At the time you'd notice that with every level cap increase and every moment less spend inside Abyssea just how horrible Cure VI was if you spent any amount of time actually playing White Mage (I remember spamming between Cure IV/V being more then adequate to main heal almost anything shortly before the changes with cure recasts being the only constraint that held this back), so it really puzzled me about the justification when it was really obvious that the problem had more to do with the cure formula, and how it desperately needed changes to scale a little better.

I'd like to take a moment for thanking everyone who supported the changes over giving out Cure V as a change, although I wish SE had either increased the amount Cure V/VI could heal or lowered their MP costs so they'd be more MP efficient then III/IV are when they did the changes. I guess it isn't bad having them as emergency cures, but essentially the spells could cease to exist and it wouldn't affect me in a major way.

With Regen V, faster regen casting, LA bonus to regen potency, new gear that boost cure potency and reduces casting time, and overall healing magic changes, I'm perfectly happy with SCH curing now in every event I bring it to.

Personally I'm still a little bitter they stopped where they did for Regen. Light Arts Regen buffs don't affect /SCH at all (there is absolutely no reason it shouldn't, it would be at half level strength), Red Mage doesn't have access to higher tiers of Regen (they should have at least III, and probably IV by now), and White Mage Regen merits are even more of a joke then they were before.

I'd much rather they focused on increasing Red Mage's access to the spell first.

I suppose if they were to boost Light Arts from /SCH to give out the 12HP/tic and take the most obvious route to buff White Mage Regen merits (scaling the merit effect with spell tier) then there would be a danger that Regen IV by a well geared White Mage could outcure Regen V from a Scholar tic by tic, which isn't the goal of continued adjustments by a longshot... so any buff to White Mage Regen Merits will probably be duration related (considering White Mage doesn't get Composure, or Perpetuance, and how Regen used to be the most MP efficient way to cure, there is a wide amount of room for improvement, and it is the most natural change without upsetting balance).

One way this could be done would be to add 10 tics, or 30 seconds per merit. Together with Light Arts and gear, this would equate to 83 tics (249 seconds, or 4 minutes, 9 seconds, just short of Scholar's 4 minute 30 second Regen spells with gear and strat). This would get White Mage a spell that has 64HP/MP efficiency (more while Accessioned, but still less effective then Scholar's Regen V), which while an improvement over the 34HP/MP that a Cure IV can pull off, is nowhere near the cure potential of an AoE cure. Overall, I wouldn't expect a single White Mage to merit it, but the merit choice would be significantly less insulting.

So I would say Regen should be adjusted to be a little more friendly for non-SCH to cast it:

• Give Red Mage Regen III, Regen IV.
• Make /SCH Light Arts give out the Regen buffs.
  Essentially, /SCH would give out 12HP/tic and 8 extra tics. This will mostly help Red Mages who are subbing Scholar since White Mages will still find cures more MP efficient in most cases.
• In addition to the current affect, have White Mage Regen merits increase duration.
  This would be mostly symbolic, since other choices would still be better to merit.

I'd still be somewhat ify on even considering the last change, since it would be symbolic, pretty unnecessary, and essentially close the possibility of a Composure/Perpetuance lookalike effect for White Mage. However the first two changes are ones I would push for, especially since they're mostly for the benefit of Red Mage.