Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

Also adding my voice to this thread at how distressing these changes for White Mage are.

Seriously though, it really bothers me that people can look at these changes and think "Oh it'll be fine on release."

No. These are core mechanic and job defining gameplay changes that can't be fixed with a potency tweak in a patch a few weeks out. They're forcing an RNG playstyle on a job that has never had to rely on RNG, in a role that values consistency over anything else. They're forcing a spammy hard cast single target playstyle on a job that has always excelled at AoE and HoTs. They're continuing to shove a niche of "throughput healer with no utility" upon us when that niche has been dead and irrelevant for a very long time now.

AND on top of undeniably making WHMs worse when they were already in a bad spot to begin with, they undeniably BUFF its two competitors.

People who really love their WHMs have every reason to be upset over these changes, and telling them to calm down and wait and see is both demeaning and incredibly naive.

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Originally Posted by MisterLucie

What is there to wait and see? We have all the abilities and how they interact with eachother. It's boatloads of RNG on a role that despises RNG, and more throughput on a job that needed utility and not throughput.

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This. There is literally only one thing to wait for: corrected translations (since apparently the difference between a 10% healing buff from Diurnal and a 15% healing buff from Diurnal fall under localization nuances, as does whether Heat on MCH is a buff or a nerf.)

I thought the whole point of not adding a new tank/healer for Stormsblood was to actually balance our current tank and healers? You seem to have done a good job with tanks, but what about healers?

Scholar which has been mandatory since 2.0 is still probably going to have a fixed role in raids because of the fairy even if you boost aspected benefic to 300% (Which is a whole other can of worms...), and that was supposed to be fixed. Now they'll have an even better buff then battle litany + battle litany works with it.

Ever since balance was buffed in 3.4 people have been complaining about lack of utility and identity on white mage and how can it compete with astro for a healer spot. This is your response to that? What's the point of even being a "pure healer" if other healers actually heal more then us?

I sincerely doubt that SE can actually fix this by the 16th, but we'll see. I'm so disheartened by this news. I was so excited for new toys to play around with and to have two of those toys locked behind an RNG fest supporting a subpar play style is so underwhelming.

Possibly posted elsewhere on these forums:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._japanese_and/

Basically, a lot of skill effects were translated incorrectly or were backwards.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

Basically, a lot of skill effects were translated incorrectly or were backwards.

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Not the white mage ones, though.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

This. There is literally only one thing to wait for: corrected translations (since apparently the difference between a 10% healing buff from Diurnal and a 15% healing buff from Diurnal fall under localization nuances, as does whether Heat on MCH is a buff or a nerf.)

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Apparently all the WHM skills are the same in Japanese as they are in English or so says the Reddit thread with those translations.

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Originally Posted by Powercow

Not the white mage ones, though.

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It was more a stab at people saying that things are cemented and won't change. When lo, some of the tooltips were already incorrect.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

It was more a stab at people saying that things are cemented and won't change. When lo, some of the tooltips were already incorrect.

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If you'll notice, though, the tooltips that were incorrect were merely number differences. Those are easy changes. The issue with the WHM changes isn't an easily fixed potency one.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

It was more a stab at people saying that things are cemented and won't change. When lo, some of the tooltips were already incorrect.

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That's fair. The problem is that most of the changes are tiny little changes -- like Riddle of Fire being 30% damage boost with 15% slow rather than 20%/30% respectively. The problems with the new WHM design aren't as easily solved as "oh it's now 30% chance when you cast Cure or Cure II".

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Originally Posted by Powercow

Oh, you're assuming anyone's gonna run with DRK!

Oh heaven forbid people look at the tooltips and go "oh, hey this heal over time is way, way more efficient than overhealing with my basic healing spell. Now, what to do with all this free time since the tank isn't dying... hm..."

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I'm gonna assume you've never had a bad tank ever.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

I'm gonna assume you've never had a bad tank ever.

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We both play on Primal. We both know the likelihood of never encountering a bad player is astronomically low.

Even with the worst tank (a paladin who never used a cooldown, shield oath, or even sword oath!), hell even when I've had to do entire dungeons with NO tank I still find time to DPS and rely primarily on HoTs and oGCDs.

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Originally Posted by MisterLucie

If you'll notice, though, the tooltips that were incorrect were merely number differences. Those are easy changes. The issue with the WHM changes isn't an easily fixed potency one.

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It depends. If something like the proc rate for lilies were something like 50%. That's a huge difference for reducing cooldowns.
(In before someone says that's not the rate. I know, it's a hypothetical situation that could spell the night and day difference between how the class would play.)

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Originally Posted by MisterLucie

People who really love their WHMs have every reason to be upset over these changes, and telling them to calm down and wait and see is both demeaning and incredibly naive.

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You kind of have to accept not everyone is going to agree and people have different opinions and you shouldn't take it personally :/

I play WHM and AST and me personally I am reserving judgement until I see everything to do with the battle system in SB. The battle content might not be the same style as we have now, and it seems there was possibly some incorrect translations of the tooltips we've seen so far.

So I just personally feel waiting is a good idea...doesn't mean my opinion is supposed to demean you. You really should relax about that.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

Summary:
Yoshi-P "We listened to you guys complaining about not having enough to heal and boring DPS, so we made healing better!"
English Forum "nooo, we wanted more utility cause we have so much downtime"
Yoshi-P "We tied the lily system to Cure and Cure II, the core WHM mechanic"
English Forum "but we don't use those, we spam regen and medica II so we can DPS more"
Yoshi-P "So you can see we really listened to people who want to play WHM"
English Forum elitist raiders heads asplode.

I would not be surprised if this was exactly what the Japanese players were asking for, as their largest thread is the suggestion thread, where as our largest thread is the "tales from the duty finder (aka look how badly players play their roles)"

And unlike other previous mechanic changes, there are people on the forum who want to play pure healer that these changes encourage, and there are people who only play WHM to be a third DPS/or get the faster queue that these changes improve nothing except for the change to cleric stance no longer being a pain in the butt.

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You're doing it again. You haven't even completed Heavensward nor do you know how Regen functions. Stop lecturing healer who have played through the game and have far more experience than you do. Following Saito's like, one of the first posts on White Mage?

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If you want to put a healer on raid content from 4.0, you should fold the staff and switch to a book or celestial globe.

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Sounds like they are totally happy with the change!

There are indeed similar complaints regarding WHM on the JP forums.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...3%83%89/page16

Post 314 onwards.

Basically the same complaints as the EN community.

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How WHM in SB does not seem to be the "pure healer" SE wants.

Why RNG in healing sucks.

Why nerfing Divine Seal and giving it to the other healers is silly and goes against the WHM "Pure Healer" concept. (I especially agree with this)

Why RNG in healing is awful.

IF you want to raid in 4.X, you should keep your staff and get a book or globe.

Why lilies are RNG and therefore suck since healing and RNG should not mix.

How WMH lost a lot of abilities through the role abilities, more than the other healers.

How there is no synergy for WHM with the other classes.

RNG sucks and I don't use cure or cure II to proc the lilies anyway.

How scholars and astrologians have better (or as good) healing than WHM.

How SE better make changes to WHM from 4.0 to 4.5.

And of course the few jokes about attending funeral and replies about bringing WHM lilies to the funeral.

AND RNG DOES NOT FREAKING MIX WITH HEALING!! FOR GOODNESS SAKES SE!

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

But it seems like the dps-whm's who are upset with this change were just spamming regen instead of Cure, and use Medica II constantly so they have more time to DPS and make the the tank work harder in the process. Maybe this works for some raiders, but I figure these are just raiders who scream "DPS or Kick"

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Because that is how you heal in this game. Why would I waste time casting Cure II when HoTs will achieve the same thing? It's a waste of MP and resources I can better reserve for DPS. Furthermore, we lose all our Lilies every time Assize, Asylum and Tetra are used. Therefore, I cannot pre-plan my heals. Say I'm in a situation where Assize is ten seconds away from being off cooldown but the tank needs immediately healing for the next buster. I have to blow Tetra, wasting my Lilies on an ability I likely won't need again when it comes back when I wanted the cooldown reduction for Assize. This system will actually be far more work on tanks because you'll actively want them taking enough damage to warrant more Cure and Cure II casts. Wherever now, tanks don't have to work at all. Like I said above, you really need to stop speaking about mechanics you don't understand.

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Originally Posted by Powercow

We both play on Primal. We both know the likelihood of never encountering a bad player is astronomically low.

Even with the worst tank (a paladin who never used a cooldown, shield oath, or even sword oath!), hell even when I've had to do entire dungeons with NO tank I still find time to DPS and rely primarily on HoTs and oGCDs.

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That's called emergent gameplay, or adapting to situations.

I have played hard content with bad/underequipped tanks, including one just the other day, and one 11 months ago that I had recorded (started recording after they said their gear was broken), and that is when all these tools are the most useful.

If dungeons had mobs that hit for 90% damage, every time, you would not be healing them with just regen. No instead most of the storyline content is comparably easy. Content only presents a challenge at V2.0, V3.0 and V4.0's launch week, and then people have learned the best strategy to avoid taking so much damage.

What do you want SE to do? RNG all damage so that you have to spam medica II, regen, Cure II, Assylum and Assize to stay on top just in case the next move is the tank buster?

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Originally Posted by Miste

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I don't think numbers & translation or even battle content gonna change anything. The main point is WHM new healing mechanics are tied to RNG with cure I/II & they still don't have any utility, it'll still sucks even if they increase the numbers up, since the direction they're going is wrong to begin with.

Everything just seem so obvious that it's rather unreasonable to expect people to stay calm about this.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

That's called emergent gameplay, or adapting to situations.

I have played hard content with bad/underequipped tanks, including one just the other day, and one 11 months ago that I had recorded (started recording after they said their gear was broken), and that is when all these tools are the most useful.

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Are you... seriously using a tank with broken gear as an example of a situation where a job's toolkit might actually be useful? Really?

Otherwise I have no idea what you're trying to say in this post.

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Originally Posted by AsakuraVN

I don't think numbers & translation or even battle content gonna change anything. The main point is WHM new healing mechanics are tied to RNG with cure I/II & they still don't have any utility, it'll still sucks even if they increase the numbers up, since the direction they're going is wrong to begin with.

Everything just seem so obvious that it's rather unreasonable to expect people to stay calm about this.

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Never said you had to stay calm but he said people who don't agree are demeaning people... I don't know about that. Everyone has different opinions and I don't think people are trying to demean with them and I am in the camp where I feel better waiting to see.

What they have shown so far (if it is wholly correct) I am leaning more towards the same conclusion as you about the RNG factor for sure, but I still want to reserve judgement until I see everything. Just how I feel anyway.

I am unsure why they thought RNG was good for lilies...but I am wondering if the percentages are correct atm and wondering if the fights in SB are going to be any different than now (like more healing intensive? less? same?) I don't know just rambling.

I wonder if the devs even play WHM.
How often any of them was able to get 3 lilies during playtesting? I bet that you can't even get 3 lilies in raid simply because you'll use Tetra/Assize/Asylum or whatever before getting your 3rd flower.
Meaning that the new "15% Stoneskin oGCD" will never be used. Also meaning that your oGCD will see a 4 or 10% cooldown reduction, which is laughable.

In short, with the exception of Stone IV and Thin air, everything that WHM got for Stormblood is trash tier. They even took a lot of WHM skills to put them as X-role skills.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Are you... seriously using a tank with broken gear as an example of a situation where a job's toolkit might actually be useful? Really?

Otherwise I have no idea what you're trying to say in this post.

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An argument as old as this game "use all the tools in your toolbox"

Healer - "Okay but maybe those tools aren't good for this situation"

DPS-WHM's "If you aren't maximizing DPS or maximizing GCD's you must suck"

There is a reason why the dungeons are different. Perhaps SE should have made it so that Esuna removes all debuffs, and have then last until removed instead of just allowing players to heal through it.

Each tool is useful for at least one thing

Cure heals small damage
Cure II heals large damage
Cure III heals larger damage but only beneficial if everyone stands in the same spot (eg primals)
Esuna recovers removable debuffs
Medica heals small damage across the party
Medica II heals smaller damage across the party with a regen buff, when correctly timed negates most party-crushing damage
Regen recovers damage faster than most single-stacked debuffs you can't clean
Benediction is the "can't recover em fast enough" heal
Tetragrammaton is basically free "Cure *2" with a long CD

Then you have Assize which is like casting Cure and Stone II on everything in range in a single cast for no cost but has a long CD.

There is enough Curing magic in the game that each tool has a logical use. But some people are insisting on having some kind of healer rotation of overhealing and magic waste, so if that's the way you want to play the game, the changes SE made won't help you.

Considering that the WHM's job is basically a heal slave to the Tank, the amount of work you need to do as the healer is entirely dependent on how good or how bad the tank is, and if the tank breaks all their gear at the first boss because they forgot to repair, the choice is either keep going and use all these tools at once, or abandon the instance and perhaps waste an hour waiting for the duty to get another tank. The "tank broke all their gear" is hopefully the least likely scenario. The more likely scenario is that the Tank just doesn't give a care how they play or how you play, so as long as nobody is taking a dirt nap or calling people names, don't tell people how to play the game.

And yet, Yoshi-P has directly told people how to play WHM, and here's the consequences of people harassing WHM's to DPS or due to this false-notion of laziness. Now you only get your bonus stuff by playing a specific way that discourages lazy game play.

That is what you all wanted. Lazy WHM gameplay is now discouraged.

A job's core mechanic should not be designed around the idea that they will potentially have a bad tank and then useless in the other 95% of the scenarios they're in. That's insane.

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Originally Posted by Miste

Never said you had to stay calm but he said people who don't agree are demeaning people... I don't know about that.

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There are several posts in this thread and others regarding the issue saying people are acting as if "the sky is falling" or that they need to "stop bitching" or "get over it." That is what I was referring to. I apologize if I was too broad when saying that.

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Originally Posted by AutumnsHollow

I sincerely doubt that SE can actually fix this by the 16th, but we'll see. I'm so disheartened by this news. I was so excited for new toys to play around with and to have two of those toys locked behind an RNG fest supporting a subpar play style is so underwhelming.

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Yeah...about those new toys...all the healers get Rescue...it's not WHM exclusive...even though they showed it on WHM. we were all hoping.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

snip snip

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The point you're trying to make is confusing. "Spamming" regen and medica 2 was never overhealing, this "buff" WHM is going to get in SB promotes overhealing. And if anything this new feature is going to cause WHMs to be lazy because now they're just spamming cure 1 and 2 instead of contributing to the party by DPS.

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Originally Posted by Yallaid

i mean, that's sort of awful isn't it? So in return for losing 5 unique skills to becoming Role Actions that I have to put on my hotbar I get a new system that I'm supposed to ignore. Unless it goes off in which case, yippee a sort of Medica or a shield or some shorter cooldowns!!
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Not really.
I don't define a class as good because it has "OMG so many buttons".
I define a class as good if the gameplay feels fluid and fun.
While I would agree that AST and SCH both bring far too much to the table compared to plain old WHM, I do think we have all the tools we actually need to do our job.

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Originally Posted by Miste

I am unsure why they thought RNG was good for lilies...

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Simple: they wanted to change things up and wanted to move away from 100% predictable cooldowns.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

From the very beginning of V2.0, Cure-Cure II was WHM's core mechanic, otherwise it would not have "free Cure II" and "half cost Cure III" attached to it.

But it seems like the dps-whm's who are upset with this change were just spamming regen instead of Cure, and use Medica II constantly so they have more time to DPS and make the the tank work harder in the process. Maybe this works for some raiders, but I figure these are just raiders who scream "DPS or Kick"

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Try spamming Cure and Cure II in A12S.

I don't think you've ever done "hard" content, despite what you claim.

I wonder if they're planning on increasing the damage the player's take, even more. That would be fun.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

An argument as old as this game "use all the tools in your toolbox" ... That is what you all wanted. Lazy WHM gameplay is now discouraged.

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Reading this post I have to wonder if you even play White Mage?

I've thought up some quick suggestions to make Lilies and Confessions not as horrible. I'm not asking for all of these changes at once but a few would help improve the situation while attempting to stick to Yoshi-P's "ideal" image of WHM.

My ideas in the order I think them up:

• Increase the proc rate of both Lilies and Confessions. Why do Cure I and II have the same proc rate? Cure II should either have a higher proc rate (50%) or make Free Cure give a guaranteed Lily. Cure I should get a higher proc rate anyway, at least 30%.

• Let Regen give a guaranteed Lily when it would normally run out, meaning Regen gives a Lily every 21 seconds, even if you overwrite it with a new Regen. This would only work for one Regen at a time so spamming Regen on the party wouldn't be OP.

• LET LILIES PROC OFF OF STONE III&IV. Nothing else to say. Probably lower than 20%, depending on how much free time we can devote to damage.

• Divine Benison should become stronger when it uses multiple Lilies, being 25% shielding at 3 Lilies.

• Another idea is that Divine Benison benefits twice as much from the Lilies Recast Reduction, making it have a 24 second recast with 3 Lilies consumed.

• WHY DO WE STILL HAVE REPOSE? I thought we were pruning barely used skills! The only time I ever use this skill is in Brayflox NM for the 2nd boss, and even then the boss doesn't do a lot of damage to make it needed. Repose staying is a slap in the face.

• Secrets of the Lily II needs a change. A good idea I heard was an action that makes the overheal from HoTs give some shielding based on the target's max HP.

• Confessions should either last longer or have an additional effect; perhaps a minor HoT or increased chance to proc a Lily.

• Let Assize, Medica I and II have a chance to proc Confession with the trade-off of lowering the potency of Plenary Indulgence and increasing Recast time slightly. Assize could also get an increased Confession proc rate when it consumes Lilies.

That's all that I can think of without needing to add new actions besides the Secrets of the Lily II change.

Adding my voice of displeasure. Not happy about the massive amount of skills we're outright losing and have to buy back. Those are free spots for the other healers, whereas they're necessary for us to get back to where we were. Not happy about a JOB ability going to cross-class. What are we going to get when completing that quest now? Why the hell would they take away Stoneskin, which was one of the few abilities that was left to make us unique? These changes make me wonder if any of the developers have even played the class.

Add me to this also.
As a white mage Main.
I had to switch to AST for raid. Was hoping 4.0 would bring it back, unless things change I don't see how it could happen.

I'm not even a WHM main, and I was particularly mean to some of the WHM mains in the forums these past days cause I thought there was a hint of logic behind the devs' decisions.

Well, I eat my words, you doomsaying WHMs were all completely right.

White Mage officially has the absolute WORST gameplay design I have ever seen in any videogame I've played. I'm actually so pissed about the lack of attention to healer balance and disconnect from the community's development of the meta that I'm dropping healing entirely. Specially after SCH's AoE got gutted to the ground.

Like, really? We have the most powercrept job in the game getting nothing but hilariously unnecessary buffs, while the other two jobs it's competing with get nothing but nerfs and shitty add-ons that add NOTHING? What were they even thinking when they put AST and WHM's toolkits against one another and went "yep. A JOB WELL DONE."

Jesus, it's disgusting.

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Originally Posted by Freyt

DPS getting hit by aoe's is kinda rng too so idk what people are complaining about. This isn't going to prevent white mage from keeping a tank alive, or dps alive when they take unavoidable damage.

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DPS getting hit by aoe's is kinda rng too

DPS getting hit by aoe's is kinda rng too

This is absolutely the silliest thing I've seen in a long while.

I am retiring my WHM, effective immediately, and encouraging everyone I see to not even level it. It's nothing but a noob trap idiots waste their time leveling now.

Looking through it, I'd say Confession is the only gimmick that needs a bit of work, the means to reach said worth in using it just doesn't seem to be there for something that does so little. Aero to Aero II isn't bad, they kept it instant, so that's something. Hm, a Confession should be more about a sin, it's weird to have a Confession come from healing a target, it could be more like a Confession for harming a target with a DoT. Let Aero havea chance to build up Confessions and rather than make it 3 charges you make it 9 for full potency and something that is built up through WHM. Encourage them to be active by switching between DPS and healing so that they can obtain a strong Standby AOE cure when needed.

Heck even better why not have Confession be used up to add a Lily to WHM if they want that 2nd Lily to speed up the accessibility of a skill they plan on using.

I get it, much like BRD when they had casting with Wandere's Minuet, their control over using their skills in quick successions was limited to their 2 DoTs, which wasn't as engaging as MCH that at least had control with their bullets.

Heck maybe even take a page from WAR and give WHM abilities that give them confessions again, rather than tie everything to Cure and Cure II, it would make more sense for Confession to be gained through other means, they are bloating WHM's gimmick through 1 tunnel, having Confessions be based around their DPS skills and other abilities while keeping the main source of Lily's being the Cure/Cure II use would make the gameplay more engaging.

Heck by building it up like this you could have 2 Lily's + 9 Confession be used to gain even more powerful effects from certain abiltiies, WHM could focus more on how to manage these ability but most importantly, WHM needs a stance that ignores the use of Lilies and Confessions on abilities you don't want to burn your charges on.

Another thing that will hinder WHM is knowing their Lilies are spent if they use one of the abilities on the list, but it might not be the ability they want to have the lower recast on or care to have the lower recast on, if you give WHM the flexibility to hold and choose when to use it, it would offer them more freedom.

adding my voice (post) to the crowd -- please SE, tell me there is still time to change things! There are so so many things, little things and big things that you could do right now to fix WHM. what we've seen so far is absolutely unacceptable, i cannot believe that the 4.0 WHM will even work as intended if released in this state.

Mods please delete any thread that begins with "Delete". Thanks.