White Mage is falling behind while Astro keeps getting buffs

I would love to see every spell cast on the Global Cool Down produce a Lily. EVERY single one. The Lily System would still use a recast reduction for abilities that corresponds to Lilies consumed but the maximum reduction would be 12% with 3 lillies, 8% at 2, and 4% for 1 in my ideal world. The other spells would also have a "Zealous" version that activated whenever you had 3 lillies and consumed them all once cast. So with 3 Lilies your next spell cast would be a Zealous Cure or Zealous Stone for example, meaning it's cast time and recast time would be reduced by 1 second. Secret of the Lilies 2 would increase your crit chance on any Zealous spell by 20 percent. This way lillies wouldnt be something you needed to focus on but constantly increased your effectiveness with every spell and ability as long as you are active. Cutting a second off your cast time every four cast really adds up over time and would make lillies a raiders friend with a subtle dps boost.

To be fair the only upside is that WHM has way less mana problems in comparison to AST and thats the only upside. Omega 12 S has a decent heal check but the problem is that the ASTRO now with his new Bubbel is way ahead of everything it gives you regen and dmg reduce for simple tapping the button now for 5 seconds even if you used it around 0.1 sec, thats just way to busted, if Asylum would give a HOT then it would be good but a static field with all the movement in high end content isnt that good. And WHm has the BLM problem here atm to, you have a to long cast time on stone and aero 3 so you cant move and dps/clip OGCD and that destroys WHM traits as being the Heal with the best DPS, if you cant cast you cant do dps ofc. Like i did both Ultimates with WHM and it sucked massive my dmg wasnt that good and cards would have made every thing way more easy, and i shudder to think what would have happend when we had PoA and CU with the same little button tapping full 5 secs dmg reduce back there, saves you DMG reduce abilitys for other stuff so you heal way less and can do more dmg.

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Originally Posted by Mortex

To be fair the only upside is that WHM has way less mana problems in comparison to AST and thats the only upside.

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I ran through raids on Astro this week (still with a 370 weapon), and I don't think that's really true. Yeah, early SB nerfed it a bit compared to how free it was at end of HW... but now it feels like it's right back where it was.

So I have to wonder where this comes from. Are people not using their oGCDs? Not using lightspeed for healing-intensive parts if star/CU/etc are on cooldown? Ignoring synastry when the tank healing is heavy?

In any case... the logs speak for themselves. ASTs have slightly less potency on their DPS spells. They wouldn't be outdamaging WHM if MP was the limiting factor... as was the case pre-4.3.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

I would love to see every spell cast on the Global Cool Down produce a Lily. EVERY single one.

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It is worth noting that both AST and SCH get their CDR from using oGCDs. Only WHM has to hardcast a healing spell to get it.

That being said... I don't think this is a fix for WHM's problems.

AST has a much higher Damage Contribution than WHM.

I define Damage Contribution as the combined personal damage (Direct and indirect) dealt against a target with the extra damage inflicted due to AST buffs affecting the party.

Even looking at personal numbers on fflogs for the current savage raids AST is outDPSing WHM. I'll take a quick look at 99th (best), 75th (good), 50th (average), and 25th (below average) percentile numbers:

O9S-
99th: AST is 3758, WHM is 3370
75th: AST is 2659, WHM is 2520
50th: AST is 2200, WHM is 2160
25th: AST is 1760, WHM is 1752

O10S-
99th: AST is 3162, WHM is 3019
75th: AST is 2373, WHM is 2328
50th: AST is 2058, WHM is 2055
25th: AST is 1740, WHM is 1781

O11S
99th: AST is 3478 (and actually beating SCH, too), WHM is 3102
75th: AST is 2626 (and actually beating SCH, too), WHM is 2454
50th: AST is 2301, WHM is 2212
25th: AST is 2005, WHM is 1973

O12S (p1)
99th: AST is 3323, WHM is 3208
75th: AST is 2552, WHM is 2568
50th: AST is 2247, WHM is 2301
25th: AST is 1949, WHM is 2080

O12S (p2)
99th: AST is 3545, WHM is 3330
75th: AST is 2589, WHM is 2595
50th: AST is 2256, WHM is 2342
25th: AST is 1966, WHM is 2057

So at best, WHM is pulling equal with AST in personal numbers at average play, and falling 10% behind in some cases at high level play. The only stand-out seems to be O12, but I don't know if that's just because there are only about 360 WHM parses registered compared to almost 900 ASTs. So if we're just looking at personal contribution it's not too bad, overall.

But what does WHM bring that AST doesn't? Spammable Cure III? Is that it? As has been said before, if your niche is 'the big green number guy' you can't use your niche properly, because it means big red numbers have to come your way. And if big red numbers come your way that only big green number guy can deal with, then the other two are completely obsolete because they physically can't keep up, just to give you your niche. If they want every job to be viable in every instance they can't have that.

Also here are the numbers for Suzie while we're at it in case you want slightly less than Savage.

Suzie-Ex
99th: AST is 2851, WHM is 2959
75th: AST is 1848, WHM is 2008
50th: AST is 1451, WHM is 1628
25th: AST is 1108, WHM is 1267

These numbers are actually somewhat better, with AST falling consistently around 10% behind WHM from 75th and below (99th is only about 4%). That said, I'm not too familiar with the DPS that an AST's cards alone deal in raid buffs over the course of a fight, so I'm unsure if 10% of a WHM's output would match it. Could someone possibly throw that my way?

And since I'm on a roll here, I'll do the dungeons and round the set. By the looks of it FFlogs bases dungeons on clear time in seconds or something (so lower is better):

The Burn-
99th: AST is 710, WHM is 693
75th: AST is 933, WHM is 888
50th: AST is 1036, WHM is 998
25th: AST is 1183, WHM is 1141

Arboretum-
99th: AST is 746, WHM is 736
75th: AST is 923, WHM is 899
50th: AST is 1025, WHM is 994
25th: AST is 1164, WHM is 1123

So yeah, if you want to shave 20-40 seconds off your dungeon run, I guess you take White Mage? Wow!

tl;dr It seems the only thing that's somewhat balanced right now is potentially Suzaku between WHM/AST in terms of DPS and contribution. And dungeons, I guess, but they hardly really need balance if we're being honest. Scholar almost universally dunks them both, which is a different discussion altogether, however.

I'd look into healing output, in those fights too, but that's not the current topic. I might make another post comparing healing later.

The idea that Cure III even comes close to making up for WHM's other shortcomings at a time where Indomitability has a potency of 500 and a 30s cooldown is ridiculous.

Have a look at the skills that were added in SB for example. They clearly tried to balance things out in the way the new skills were given, each of the healing jobs gets an upgrade to their damage spell, 2 healing skills, a buff and a cooldown reduction trait. So assuming the jobs were balanced at the end of HW and the skills they get are similar in power we should end up with the 3 jobs being relatively balanced in SB, right? Except they weren't evenly-powered at all at the end of HW. And clearly they didn't get it right because there were numerous further changes to all 3 jobs shortly after the start of SB.

If you want to see why WHM is falling further behind you can have a look at what happened with the buffs. WHM got Thin Air, while SCH got Chain Stratagem and AST got Sleeve Draw. The problem is quite clear: WHM got a skill that fixes an earlier problem with the class (MP trouble during HW) while the other two jobs get skills that improve their performance. Thin Air is not a worthless ability at all but no-one in their right minds would choose it over Chain Stratagem.

Similarly, the cooldown reduction traits on both SCH and AST were fixed during the patches shortly after SB release while lilies (both the base system as well as the 68 trait) where left as a complete mess. After the changes, SCH's cooldown reduction trait became extremely strong, effectively increasing the number of Aetherflow abilities from 3 to 4 per minute.
Let's compare, you could use an Aetherflow ability every 20s before (60s / 3) and now every 15s (45s / 3). That's a 25% cooldown reduction. Note that the requirement to activating this is using the actual Aetherflow skills which are not on the global cooldown. In comparison, WHM can achieve a maximum of 20% cooldown reduction, and it costs 3 full GCD casts in order to activate this.

In fact this is the real problem with how most of the tools added to WHM in this expansion are designed: The reliance on GCD casts to feed into oGCD skills which you would much rather use to save yourself from casting GCD heals.
This is exactly the problem with Plenary Indulgence. By the time you have cast 3 Medicas (or Cure III) you have healed so much that you would almost never need the Plenary Indulgence to follow it up. Especially because in most of the situations where you would need it, your co-healer has their 500 or 720 potency, no requirement heals that they are going to use anyway.
(I mean 300 potency Assize + 450 potency PI = 750 which is more than Earthly Star's 720 right? Ahaha)

But at the end of the day they aren't actually going to change White Mage because there's really no problem. Unlike MCH and DRK where the problems have resulted in almost no-one playing them, WHM is still played by many people (based on o9s numbers and anecdotally in normal mode raids, etc). It's not no so broken that it doesn't work, and especially if you are a more casual player you would never even notice the differences between it and the other healers.

So who really cares?

For Lilies they need to have different effects based on the ability you use it with, and certainly more reliable ways to generate it. The minuscule cooldown reduction is the real problem though, since it's not enough to actually matter even if you wanted to Cure spam for it.

Rework Secret of the Lily II to give Stone spells a combo with themselves to automatically generate a Lily. That way your goal becomes to find windows where you can afford to Stone spam back to back to generate as many Lilies as possible while DPSing while naturally gating it by dancing back from stone and other healing spells. Allow the AoE heals other than Medica II to generate a Lily on their own as well through Secret of the Lily I as well. The Aero spells and Holy do not need to generate it. The non-HoT Healing spells and Stone line are enough. I'd also say make Cure I instant cast via a 5.0 trait to encourage using it for topping off the tank and weaving oGCDs if we're not going to add a dps spell to weave with. Given people are mostly using Cure II nowadays to maximize DPS uptime this wouldn't really hurt how WHM is played at all. WHM needs a tool like this in their kit period.

- Tetra would obviously get a lower cooldown per Lily. 5 or 10s per stack. This would naturally push it closer to Lustrate/Essential Dignity in power and feel more impactful. Keep in mind that 3 stacks currently reduces this by 12s, so I'm leaning towards the latter.
- I'd argue to let Fluid Aura deal damage again, and increase that damage output by how many lilies you have. Increase its range and remove the knockback too.
- Reworking PI to be a buff that triggers when the affected player takes damage (similar to Excog but without the massive HP threshold) instead of something you have to consume after an AoE. Its stack count would be based on how many Lilies you used. It would still be AoE and apply to the whole party. Lowering its potency could be an option too.
- Divine Benison should affect the whole party at 3 stacks and get more shield strength at 1-2. It would likely be nerfed at base level to compensate. Basically, Stoneskin I/II in one cooldown.
- Asylum would gain more duration or potency based on stack count, but not consume lilies. It's hard enough to get the full value out of it as is depending on the fight, so I don't think it needs much done to it.
- Assize could get more MP/damage/healing in some combination. I do not recommend lowering its cooldown, just improving its potencies seems fairer, especially given the above suggestions.

I've considered making some of these abilities share a cooldown to balance their power and give WHMs more to think about. Namely Fluid Aura/DB/PI, since the latter two cover similar ground. This iteration of PI is better at quickly topping players off from AoE in general (effectively becoming a pre-castable Indom) while DB covers lethal busters/raidwide AoE nicely where applicable. Fluid Aura would be the default use except when the latter two are needed, and they'd retain the same 30s cooldown they all share. The increased Tetra usage should alleviate the need for Divine Benison on tanks somewhat as well, at least if you're using it just because it's there.

I'd expect them to get more cooldowns that interact with Lilies explicitly to encourage their use. Maybe Divine Seal if SE decides to remove Largesse for some reason. More likely they'd want a short cooldown filler damage ability, just to spend extra Lilies. This would be an argument for them to get the Malefic treatment to their Stone spells too.

Either way we know they're getting yet another Stone/Aero upgrade come 5.0.

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Originally Posted by Metsonm

tl;dr It seems the only thing that's somewhat balanced right now is potentially Suzaku between WHM/AST in terms of DPS and contribution. And dungeons, I guess, but they hardly really need balance if we're being honest. Scholar almost universally dunks them both, which is a different discussion altogether, however.

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Indeed, judging by those numbers that would be the case...if only AST didn't have cards XD

I'm really glad that people are arguing against Cure III. This argument is obsolete, maybe you could have said this in ARR, or even HW, but now? When SCH has indom, possibly the most broken heal in the game and AST has Earthly Star? The argument that Cure III balances everything out just makes no sense.

As it stands, WHM brings nothing unique to the raid, no utility, doesn't even have the highest personal damage. To say a spammable aoe heal makes up for all these shortcomings is just ignorant.

The closest thing WHM gets to being unique is being the only healer able to rip aggro off the tank, which btw, needs to be looked at already. AST aggro issues were fixed yet WHM needs to deal with it? I bet in 5.0 we'll get a brand new spell that addresses this while the other healers get completely new things to better their job... Just like number473 said, WHM is getting tools that other healers have had since forever while the others get things to even further advance. It's like WHM is always 1 step behind for no real reason.

But this is getting off topic. The main thing is, the idea that Cure III excuses all shortcomings really needs to stop, and I'd rather them give us some unique abilities that makes us useful to the raid, rather than designing fights like Kefka that reduces HP to 1 just to artificially make Cure III seem worth it.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

I'd rather them give us some unique abilities that makes us useful to the raid, rather than designing fights like Kefka that reduces HP to 1 just to artificially make Cure III seem worth it.

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Kefka was typically handled by both healers just fine, considering most threats after Heartless Angel and Heartless Archangel can easily be dealt with by SCH/AST's AoE heals just fine while keeping uptime. What needs to be evaluated though is what exactly does each healer bring in terms of strength, as well as contribution to the raid?

WHM - Doesn't contribute too much to the raid except for stuff like Divine Benison?(seriously, why lock something like this and just give us Stoneskin back already?) and having higher DPS. Changed in 4.4 due to AST getting indirectly buffed.

SCH - Brings Shields, Magic Mitigation(Fairy Eos), Party Haste(Fairy Selene), Healing Buff(Fairy Eos), Crit Buff, 10% Mitigation Field, Critical Shields(Doubles Mitigation of Adlo), Safety Net(Excog), Strong Single Target HoT(Fairy)

AST - Card Buffs(Attack/Cast Speed, Damage, Mitigation, Crit, and Resources), 10% Mitigation + HoT Field, Buff Extension(+15s for your casts, +10s for all effects separately)

So, what competition does WHM even have to bring to begin with when AST and SCH trample all over what makes it unique?

This reminds me too much of how Heavensward went in where WHM lost its identity. This is the same case here. Also, let's face it: They literally buffed AST's cast times just so that the job can play fluently like it was supposed to in the first place with its cards. SCH plays fluently enough considering it has DoTs to maintain as well as some heals. For WHM though? It's very clunky with having to clip your GCD just so that you can use Assize or an oGCD to begin with. If they manage to remove the clunkiness and bad job mechanics that plague WHM, maybe...JUST MAYBE we might see a proper balance here.