What exactly IS a White Mage?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Erakir

Because this is all in reference to the comment on PvP last page, where lilies ARE definitely more of WHM's thing due to the nature of PvP requiring more hardcasted direct heals with much greater return on the cooldown reduction, which also sees more use again due to the less scripted nature of PvP. This doesn't change that we all know how lackluster it is in PvE, but it is definitely a bigger factor in PvP.

---

Fair enough.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Erakir

Everything else..

---

A very well thought out response on rebuttal. Nearly every word was a passing thought of my own when I arrived at the conclusion I have with WHM. I haven't turned a deaf ear to the many suggestions people have made to improve WHM, and have even made some of my own. But at the end of the day, what will be done to prevent the leapfrogging? Is it even possible the way this game is set up? And how do we shift a philosophy so engrained in our current playerbase?

I can say that I am glad I am not faced with these challenges. It has got to be tough. But it should be clear by now that my problem is not with WHM; it's with AST. I know it's not going to change, and giving WHM what it needs I can only foresee one of the other healers (likely AST) just being knocked right back down. When I play WHM though, it just feels right. I think it is a wonderfully designed job that unfortunately falls behind our other healers.

I can definitely understand if someone has chosen WHM to be their main, and/or don't have the other healers available for whatever reason. It's unfair for me to say that if WHM isn't cutting it, then bring a healer who does. I also don't desire for other healers to be pruned. But I will refuse any notion that WHM is broken. If the devs can get past the challenges, I definitely look forward to the days to come.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gemina

. Fact of the matter is it can be used to clear any content in this game just fine.

---

I'm so tired of this argument. "It can clear content so obviously everything is fine!".
No one's arguing that WHM is some broken healer that can't fufill it's duty. We all know it can clear content, that doesn't mean it should be ignored or denied unique abilities and skills.
WHM is lacking in almost every aspect and could definitely use some fine-tuning and unique raid abilities.

I will bring up something, whm gets its first shield at level 66. I ran the Siren Song Sea with mentor roulette today and guess what, the tank on the first boss was waiting on me to pop it before pulling. As this is a level 62 dungeon, no Bension available. This is about like asking a drk to use his CD's, which he/she doesn't have yet other than Rampart until level 46 with Shadow Wall (which has happened to me too). Yes, lillies are broken but whm until level 66 has no pre-pull spells like it did pre-SB with stoneskin and stoneskin 2. Also, with the loss of stoneskin 2 whm doesn't have any party damage mitigation which of course hurts in 4 person extreme's like Rathalos which makes it a liability there, especially after its heal spells no longer work (which of course effects all healers).

Of course ast in a 4 person extreme battle can be in the wrong sect and lose shields, but that is easy to correct. whm doesn't have that utility to it that ast has.

I've just been watching this thread and waiting for someone to bring this up, but it hadn't so I thought I would.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Your logic fascinates me, in a way - a similar way to an MC Escher painting.

Anyways. So there are many, many suggestions for how to help out WHM. Total reworks of lillies that community members have contributed detailed writeups about. Adding some utility (which WHMs in FF titles normally have, it's only FF14 where they don't). And many other things. But, ok, you don't like that.

So why not borrow from DPS balancing and just scale up WHM damage? Still plays exactly the same, doesn't lose any of its... "identity of having no identity" that you think it has.

But now it brings something to the table. It won't be meta without the buffs, but at least it can contribute to a faster overall kill time, help bring down DPS-check adds, and so on. And it doesn't require a lot of development work. Tweak some numbers and it's good. Vs the current situation where WHM-running teams are at a flat out disadvantage and will have a harder time dealing with DPS-check phases/adds/etc, as well as the overall enrage time.

--

But really, personally, I just want WHM to be good at something. I'd take any suggestion that makes WHM an asset instead of a liability.

---

Well, I suppose that is a plus lol. I don't think I've ever been compared to a painting.

I'm aware my logic is twisted, but it doesn't necessarily make it flawed. I recognize and acknowledge the issues, but I also want to try and bring a fresh perspective into the limelight. I am perhaps too selfish as a WHM, and it was an oversight on my part that other WHM mains out there might want a more engaging playstyle that does not belong to SCH or AST.

The weekend is here. So good sir, instead of agreeing to disagree, I vote to agree to get along and continue to strive to make the community, and not just WHM a better place.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

I'm so tired of this argument. "It can clear content so obviously everything is fine!".
No one's arguing that WHM is some broken healer that can't fufill it's duty. We all know it can clear content, that doesn't mean it should be ignored or denied unique abilities and skills.
WHM is lacking in almost every aspect and could definitely use some fine-tuning and unique raid abilities.

---

And I am not arguing that WHM is not clearly lagging behind the other healers. Again though, give this to WHM without having it knock down one of the other healers. That IS the issue I am presenting. NOT that WHM is fine, don't do anything. Read more carefully please.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gemina

But at the end of the day, what will be done to prevent the leapfrogging? Is it even possible the way this game is set up? And how do we shift a philosophy so engrained in our current playerbase?

---

Unfortunately, there isn't a way to prevent the leap frogging. When the number of jobs exceeds the number of available slots, there will always be a meta composition that is mathematically and statistically the best composition in the game.

Any adjustment with cause that leap frog event to occur, no matter how minute the change is. I don't mind this, as I feel every job should have it's time in the lime light if at all possible.

I think the only thing we can do from a player base is attempt to change the culture of meta and how its perceived.

There are a lot of leaders who latch onto meta without understanding what makes the composition meta and thus lack the coordination and skills necessary to achieve the pinnacle of a meta composition. Despite that, these leaders can make decisions that make non-meta jobs feel unwelcomed by enforcing meta compositions and thus build animosity between the player base.

The other thing I'd say that needs to change is the perceived culture that any job that is non-meta is garbage. It's a rather ignorant opinion and, again, leads to animosity.

It's not an easy change to do, but I do think a shift in perception and knowledge can at least lead to more educated discussions regarding what changes would be necessary for job balance. We'll never have perfect balance, but we can at least work towards getting that balance as close as possible.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Unfortunately, there isn't a way to prevent the leap frogging. When the number of jobs exceeds the number of available slots, there will always be a meta composition that is mathematically and statistically the best composition in the game.

Any adjustment with cause that leap frog event to occur, no matter how minute the change is. I don't mind this, as I feel every job should have it's time in the lime light if at all possible.

---

Which is why I'd be happy with a niche, and one reason why I'm fond of the "buff WHM DPS" suggestion. It wouldn't change the meta. But it would give WHM a niche.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Which is why I'd be happy with a niche, and one reason why I'm fond of the "buff WHM DPS" suggestion. It wouldn't change the meta. But it would give WHM a niche.

---

I was doing a calculation earlier.

If we took the WHM 99th percentile Omega Final log (3,473.5 DPS) and bumped up the potency of Stone IV from 250 to 280; Aero II tick from 50 to 60; Aero III tick from 40 to 45; we'd actually bump that WHM's DPS to 3,889.9. This value would exceed both SCH and AST at the same 99th percentile.

I dunno how much people would be on board for this, but I would definitely love this as a start.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gemina

And I am not arguing that WHM is not clearly lagging behind the other healers. Again though, give this to WHM without having it knock down one of the other healers. That IS the issue I am presenting. NOT that WHM is fine, don't do anything. Read more carefully please.

---

I mean this is just unavoidable no matter what. What we should be striving for is for them to close this gap, not leave it as is. Because what's going to happen if we just do nothing is, come 5.0, WHM is going to get treatment it should have had in 4.0 and be behind on everyone else again.

There are ways to bump up WHM without making them AST levels of imbalanced. A personal DPS boost would be a nice start.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gemina

And I am not arguing that WHM is not clearly lagging behind the other healers. Again though, give this to WHM without having it knock down one of the other healers. That IS the issue I am presenting. NOT that WHM is fine, don't do anything. Read more carefully please.

---

This is the inevitability that comes with balancing jobs. Monk is reaching the point it may overtake Ninja; Summoner finally pushed Machinist out last tier. The goal should be that each job is relatively close enough that people are more willing to accept its presence. Currently, White Mage's singular advantage over Astro and Scholar is Thin Air. You mention earlier White Mage is supposedly the raw healer, but Astro can match its throughput, and brings mobility thanks to lower recast times. Therefore, White Mage does need a niche of its own otherwise it simply has no relevance in end game content. No offense, you're only 66. Job balance means nothing in leveling dungeons or FATEs. White Mage mains don't appreciate taking their job of choice to make level only to be asked to switch to Astro. And that demand has become so ubiquitous even JP is taking Astro over White Mage nowadays because of the aforementioned mobility.

You can scream viability until you're blue in the face. Many people at end game level couldn't care less if a job is viable. They want it to be competitive. Dark Knight could clear everything, even Ultimate, yet it lagged behind Warrior and Paladin in terms of party composition because it simply lacked the tools of its counterparts. Samurai has been "viable" since release yet became a meme due to how low its overall rDPS was relative to Dragoon and Ninja who dwarfed it until the series of buffs finally came. And this isn't inherently a "meta" issue. Monks typically don't struggle to find groups despite being decidedly less popular than Ninja. Why? Because they're competitive. If it weren't for Piercing, you may start to see a more even spread amongst melee DPS. You aren't going to see that with healers.

So what can be done with White Mage?

- Increase its DPS
- Give it the same lowered recast Astro received
- Give it utility

The goal isn't necessarily to make White Mage better, but to have people accept it into their statics. White Mage/Astro is widely considered a joke comp because Scholar is hilariously good at everything and White Mage offers nothing Astro do better. This shouldn't be the case.

- Increase its DPS
- Give it the same lowered recast Astro received
- Give it utility*

This could be mostly rectified by reworking lillies to give a passive cast time reduction without being consumed, in addition to applying utility to its oGCD when it is consumed. Keep the cooldown reductions, but also boost their potencies.
Lastly, a bit of a tangent, but if tgey get rid of role actions and feed them back to their originators, Protect is currently superfluous and could easily fill the gap left by Stoneskin.

To elaborate, you can either bank lilies and use tgeir passive effects to boost your DPS via cast time reduction, bringing stone in like with malefic, but with a higher potency.
Or you can cash the lilies in for a big oGCD boost.

As a tangent, if AST got a slight buff to Nocturnal aspects, and i dont been potency boost, but allowing shields from Helios and Benefic to stack with each other, allowing you to combine them for a 700 potency shield instead of overwriting a 500 with a 200, then it could potentially stand up more against SCH, without stepping on WHMs toes.
Then the WHM+AST combo would be more viable.

The issue remains Lilies need to proc off more than Cure/Cure II. We simply don't utilize GCD enough for such a design philosophy to work. Unfortunately, the devs seem incredibly stubborn in this regard given they still assume even even bother with Cure to begin with. Putting that aside, the cooldown reduction would have to be significant, but not so significant you never want to spend them. A way around all of this would be for Lilies to proc off everything, possibly including DPS abilities. Once stacked, they increase the potency of your next ability. So the min/max approach would be finding that sweet spot between how long you want to hold Lilies and when you want to unleash them. Don't know how well it would do in practice though since I suspect the mechanic could boil down to "blow Lilies on Stone V" more often than not.

You could add Aero spells to proc lilies.
Or have oGCD spells only consume one lilly instead of all of them, so those cures go further.

Honestly, I don't think lillies are salvageable until the total rework that (hopefully) 5.0 will bring. Even if they do proc off more things, it's still just fundamentally bad. If WHM had something like Aetherflow it might be better, but that's not the case.

On paper, it seems really cool to give WHMs faster access to their abilities through lilies; and perhaps it is if not tied to gcds they hardly use. However, in battle it just does not translate the same way. If they are adamant about keeping this system in place, I think it would be better to tie a CD reduction to the ability itself, and the use of the ability doesn't deplete any lilies at all. The more lilies, the greater the reduction. Along with this, they could give WHM a standout ability that does deplete all lilies and increases in potency the more lilies the WHM has accumulated, and you only need one lily to have access to the ability.

So with this revamped system, the question remains on how to acquire lilies, and what should the new ability be that increases in potency the more lilies you have? Knowing SE, with this system, the tool tip for Secret of the Lily would be "Lilies gained when performing certain actions." Leaving us to figure out how to trigger them. Ultimately, it would be things like casting regen, casting two stones in a row, casting esuna; just things we do commonly do in combat already that are not ogcds tied to the lilies.

I'm open to suggestions on the super-duper WHM ability that expends the lilies. I just keeping thinking of Mega Holy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gemina

On paper, it seems really cool to give WHMs faster access to their abilities through lilies; and perhaps it is if not tied to gcds they hardly use. However, in battle it just does not translate the same way.

---

It just doesn't work with how this game is structured. You're always using an ability at a specific time usually. What's the point of getting Tetra back sooner when I need it for the tank buster that always happens every x minutes? Sure, I could use it to save the DPS that was too slow to move, but then I don't have it for the tank. That's why nobody cared about original Spear (the fact that its reduction was entirely negligible aside).

I am strongly in favor of Lilies augmenting WHM's damaging abilities. I do agree with Ghislain that WHM has clearly been balanced around dungeons, normal Omega, and 24 mans. It's also designed as a healer that can perform strongly in the hands of a less skilled player. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, but they should at least have high personal DPS to help them stand out. That would help them a lot as a true "prog" healer, because then you could have their strong triage healing while learning, but then their really good personal DPS once you've mastered mechanics.

This is all kind of talking into a vacuum ATM though because we're of course not going to see any major changes until 5.0.

I'd prefer it if WHM got lilies from Stone spells and all direct heals and primarily augmented their healing cooldowns. Secret of the Lily II should enable it for Medica and Cure III. Next expansion I'd like to see Stone get a combo with itself, that using another spell would break. Basically, spamming Stone repeatedly generates a ton of Lilies and if you can lean solely on your cooldowns you are rewarded accordingly with more of them. I don't feel Aero or Holy should generate them at all.

I think the way to improve lillies might be to have it not reduce cooldowns at all. Have it proc of Stone/Aero in some way (either perhaps every second stone or some other way that means it can proc of Stone but not at the same rate we get lillies from Cure/Cure II). Each lily then grants a bonus to critical hit chance for all abilities and is spent when you next get a critical hit (not sure what numbers would be best for this feeling powerful but not overpowered). This way lillies are still a passive ability that doesn't require being micromanaged (and thus WHM retains it's identity as the healer that doesn't have a fiddly gimmick), with the lillies doing something quite useful (making WHM just crit more than the other healers- an ability which is useful both for healing and dealing damage). Later oGCD's could be things along the lines of "spend lillies to guarantee next ability use is a critical hit", or even simply "immediately get three lillies".

If they give you lilies from stone spells, theyll be far too esasily acquired, and theyll nerf their effect.
Aero spells would be much more sensible, but simply reducing their cost to one at a time instead of expending all three at once would make them go further, and the fact that you only gain them sporadically wouldnt be so much of an issue.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wice

I think the way to improve lillies might be to have it not reduce cooldowns at all. Have it proc of Stone/Aero in some way (either perhaps every second stone or some other way that means it can proc of Stone but not at the same rate we get lillies from Cure/Cure II). Each lily then grants a bonus to critical hit chance for all abilities and is spent when you next get a critical hit (not sure what numbers would be best for this feeling powerful but not overpowered). This way lillies are still a passive ability that doesn't require being micromanaged (and thus WHM retains it's identity as the healer that doesn't have a fiddly gimmick), with the lillies doing something quite useful (making WHM just crit more than the other healers- an ability which is useful both for healing and dealing damage). Later oGCD's could be things along the lines of "spend lillies to guarantee next ability use is a critical hit", or even simply "immediately get three lillies".

---

I absolutely love this. Very nice idea, this would reward good play, increasing your healing output as you deal more damage and wouldn't increase the job's complexity. And you can also plan around it if they give us something like reassemble, to be used only with 3 lilies. So many good suggestions on the forum...and somehow the devs always succeed in making some very questionable choices...sigh

Helluuu White Magie is Hoooooooooooooly Shit!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lastelli

I absolutely love this. Very nice idea, this would reward good play, increasing your healing output as you deal more damage and wouldn't increase the job's complexity. And you can also plan around it if they give us something like reassemble, to be used only with 3 lilies. So many good suggestions on the forum...and somehow the devs always succeed in making some very questionable choices...sigh

---

I'm in favor of lilies increasing potencies across the board on spells. A healer version of Greased Lightning I suppose. Ability potencies would stay the same. Reductions no longer reduced, but abilities also don't cost lilies. I think lily procs could actually be tied to ogcd usage, which means the more the WHM relies on these, the stronger the WHM gets both restoratively and offensively. Now all that is needed is the incentive to get the WHM to spend the lilies.

I would be very happy playing this version of WHM. Just needs the right potency adjustments so it doesn't become a MNK with heals.

The dungeon dude.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gemina

I'm in favor of lilies increasing potencies across the board on spells. A healer version of Greased Lightning I suppose. Ability potencies would stay the same. Reductions no longer reduced, but abilities also don't cost lilies. I think lily procs could actually be tied to ogcd usage, which means the more the WHM relies on these, the stronger the WHM gets both restoratively and offensively. Now all that is needed is the incentive to get the WHM to spend the lilies.

I would be very happy playing this version of WHM. Just needs the right potency adjustments so it doesn't become a MNK with heals.

---

This also sounds a lot like 2.0 WAR. The passive healbuff was originally tied to the Wrath stacks. No stacks, no healbuff. So you had to decide to either hold on the stacks for the buff or spend the stacks on your skills.

They changed this in 2.1... o.ô;


However, the best incentive to spend the lilies would be off-gcd heals, because using them means you can cast more dps skills.

I think lilies could procc by the amount of potency you healed, regardless of source. 1000 potency = 1 lily (AoE heal potency should be considered lower for this, so you don't procc dozens of lilies with only one heal). Rework Plenary Indulgence again, remove the stupid proccs you get from healing people and let it consume lilies instead. Remove the cooldown as well. 1 lily = weak single target off-gcd heal, 2 lilys = strong off-gcd heal, 3 lilys = strong off-gcd heal on target but also an aoe heal around yourself.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zuzu-bq

The dungeon dude.

---

The thing is that Scholar is pretty consistently faster in dungeons runs across pretty much all skill levels. Swallow's compass seems to swap between all three as you go from 99th to 25th percentile, but more often than not Scholar provides faster clear times. There are a couple instances where a white mage is significantly faster than a scholar, but that's usually coupled with AST being right on their heels.

Overall, dungeons are pretty balanced in terms of healers, though, so I don't think it's fair to say White Mages excel in that regard.

It depends on the ability for me tbh. I think Tetra should get its cooldown reduced rather than get any potency adjustments. It's WHM's goto emergency heal, but the current cooldown it has makes it absurdly weak in throughput relative to the other healers. Benediction shouldn't really change and should ignore Lilies entirely.

Assize could benefit from increased potency. Asylum could either be more potency or more duration. Benison I think should be weaker without it (not by much) but still increase to be better. Maybe become AoE at a certain stack count. I feel that PI should be reworked to be tied to it as well, essentially granting the current buff, but it would trigger itself when the corresponding player took damage and be usable when you wanted instead of needing to spam heals to get it at all. This makes it more predictive in nature but still a strong heal. The number of stacks granted would be based on Lily count.

If we're looking for a filler damage cooldown, let Fluid Aura deal damage again and get more potency from each Lily.

My worry with the Benison and PI changes is that they'd get too absurd, and perhaps having them both share cooldowns with each other and Fluid Aura would be better overall.

I don't feel making Lilies generate from stone spells is a bad idea at all, but again, it has to be done via a combo with itself. It can't be RNG as that goes against what healers want out of their kit, consistency, and options. I agree that it can't be totally on demand either. It needs some gating to it. Hence, a combo. Using any other spell will break it which acts as a natural limiter. You're always going to use Aero II/III too, They would only generate lilies at a static rate rather than one that's adapted to the fight itself. Making all of the direct heals all generate it as well ensures you have them generating still in emergencies, and in all likelihood they would be replaced with Stone spells anyways in an ideal situation, so all in all, it fits.

The likelihood of seeing lilies from DPS spells is, simply put, not high. Possible, but...

Much as I wouldn't have a problem with it, I don't see Square putting any emphasis on DPS spells for healers. Have seen other healers in threads immediately shoot down this idea as they'd feel it 'encourages' them to DPS more. At best, it'd be an option alongside other generation. I continue to think putting a chance to generate a lily on regen ticks is the thing that makes the most sense as it encourages proper use of regen and every WHM should be doing it - that'd give an amount of incoming lilies (maybe average 2 a minute from a single regen, who knows, numbers adjustable). It would keep some variance in it too.

As it stands (again there are numerous ways to rework lilies), another one I'd put forth is simply to tie a passive spell speed or crit % to the number of lilies stacked, and change their consumption to improve the potency of abilities they affect. Because benison is percentage based, I'd just straight up remove it from lilies entirely - you're not gonna miss that 1.5s CD reduction you sometimes get on it. As an example, say lilies gave passive spell speed of 5, 10, and 20% (or crit, but using haste for this writeup) - but wait, 20% permanent spell speed, wouldn't that be OP, you might say?

Well, no - not really. If a white mage went completely without using Assize, Tetra, and Asylum, their DPS would shoot into #1 and would teeter some on the raid DPS numbers an AST or SCH brings. And then you'd boot them from a raid, because they never used an OGCD in order to keep that haste stacked. Not happening, these abilities are too important especially since they can be used on the move - but it does lead to some neat little things of maybe holding onto some lilies for a burst phase, same as you might pop Presence of Mind for it. And wouldn't you know it, WHM has the extra MP to capitalize on extra consumption from spell speed.

Has the benefit of increasing your heal throughput when you really need to be healing if you're spamming cures, or just increases DPS passively. I know, we dislike spell speed as a stat, but a straight up haste buff is something else. Or you can do the same thing with crit instead of haste - that might better fit the WHM 'idea' of not being the quick time-speedy healer. I like haste since it plays off WHMs bigger MP resources, but whichever.

I'd then say consuming the lilies oughta simply buff potencies of abilities by, heck, 10, 25, 50%. They already use CD reduction in PvP because it is VERY useful there. We know why CD reduction is extremely meh in PvE - but you know what isn't? Extra throughput for constantly utilized abilities that don't necessarily hit super hard already. And it's easy to code. For the powerhouse raw healer, at that. Sure, tetra would be more useful on a shorter CD rather than gaining some strength here or there, but it's okay - it's fine for WHM's version of lustrate to have its drawback. Quite frankly I don't see a problem with a 3 stack assize doing 450 potency, an asylum healing for 150 potency, or a minute long tetra being 1050 potency, considering you had to build up some lilies. I don't see it as a problem anywhere. As things stand most of these get used with no more than 1 lily in raids. This by far isn't what I'd ultimately like, but it's something I feel would at least work decently.

Along with all this, I'd just throw the same % passive enmity reduction based on lilies you have, cause WHM is already on the edge here to begin with and doesn't need to be pushed even further there.

But this is just one among many many many suggestions we've all seen, though I tried to keep it as one that doesn't change too much from the current lily system - gaining them in similar ways, spending them in similar ways with effects they've coded before, and tacking on buffs to having lilies to begin with. It's still an extremely passive system that doesn't change how the job is played much, aside from potentially making you think a bit more on when to use OGCDs. I'd much rather a huge redesign to begin with, but /shrug.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Metsonm

The thing is that Scholar is pretty consistently faster in dungeons runs across pretty much all skill levels. Swallow's compass seems to swap between all three as you go from 99th to 25th percentile, but more often than not Scholar provides faster clear times. There are a couple instances where a white mage is significantly faster than a scholar, but that's usually coupled with AST being right on their heels.

Overall, dungeons are pretty balanced in terms of healers, though, so I don't think it's fair to say White Mages excel in that regard.

---

I'd say healers are pretty balanced in general for PUG and progression, this raid tier just happens to value AST's unique skills more (Star and Synastry). As for dungeons: really hard to say which healer is consistently faster on dungeons since the community of dungeon speedrunning just started to grow a bit more recently. But going from current rankings been on top of the fastest runs for the majority of the dungeons. I meant to say they're the dungeon dude in regards that their toolkit is the most versitile on dungeons, having big aoe damage tools, strong regens, multiple ogcd single target and even the massive aoe stun that is holy.

That aside, for raids WHM is just the easy to pick up easy to learn healer that happened to underperform now because SE kept buffing SCH non-stop. The better SCH becomes the stronger AST gets because raid healing is about combining both healer's toolkits. And the finishing blow were AST QoL that ended up being straight buffs. WHM's idendity as the simple healer is somewhat fine, the problem is that this identity depends of the other two healers not being too strong, which wasn't the case by the end of Heavensward and the same happened again by the end of Stormblood.

What I agree is that, if SE can't keep WHM as the actual healer powerhouse, they should look for a different playstyle design to fit them in. Making them have strong GCD heals is not a good choice when you just give stronger OGCDs to the other healers and have all of them pretty much the same on all GCDs. Specially when the mentality of healers been more and more to avoid GCD healing for the past two years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Erakir

The likelihood of seeing lilies from DPS spells is, simply put, not high. Possible, but...

Much as I wouldn't have a problem with it, I don't see Square putting any emphasis on DPS spells for healers.

---

Why not?

SCH: the aetherpact gauge is mostly filled using energy drains (dps);
AST: weaving cards and healing abilities was made easier by shortening malefic 3 cast time (dps).

It is pretty obvious to me that at this point SE finally acknowledged that healers are supposed to dps, to the point that doing dps is beneficial both for AST and SCH from a gameplay perspective.

AST has always had an instant heal, tbh, but Lady is just an additional one for level 70+. It's not usable in any other content.


I think I have seen WHMs struggle with an "identity," though. I often see some playing more like preventive healers (like SCH and nocturnal AST) than reactive healers (like WHM and diurnal AST are supposed to be).



Even so, I don't think much would need ot be changed for WHM. They're still they only "pure" reactive healer with assets AST doesn't have (like you guys get an aoe heal you can place on the ground so you can DPS simultaneously as it heals, AST doesn't have that. It has one where we need to stand perfectly still for, and another one that doesn't do anything until it "bursts.") that do give them an advantage in some situations. If anything needed to be changed, maybe higher healing potency to promote reactive healing as opposed to preventive healing? I haven't played WHM since HW so, I honestly don't know. :/


The way I have always seen them is that SCH's identity is shields and foresight, AST's identity is buffs and adaptability, and WHM's identity is "big heals" and reactive. Ideally, a scholar (or noct AST) would put up shields before a big aoe move and then WHM would follow up with their big heal a second or so after the big aoe.


They could also encourage that by making AST's diurnal sect's regens overlap with WHM's regens like they do with Noct's and SCH's shields (you can't have a noct. AST and a SCH in the same party because their shields overwrite each other instead of stacking). Right now AST's regens stack with WHM's regens, so it doesn't necessarily promote that preventive + reactive gameplay when the two classes are partnered up. (GRANTED, you will occassionally get the asshole AST who refuses to adapt to the situation/party set up and play the "wrong" sect anyway, but I think it could help with identity, maybe? Gameplay wise, anyway.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MOZZYSTAR

They're still they only "pure" reactive healer with assets AST doesn't have (like you guys get an aoe heal you can place on the ground so you can DPS simultaneously as it heals, AST doesn't have that. It has one where we need to stand perfectly still for, and another one that doesn't do anything until it "bursts.") that do give them an advantage in some situations. If anything needed to be changed, maybe higher healing potency to promote reactive healing as opposed to preventive healing? I haven't played WHM since HW so, I honestly don't know. :/

---

I don't really agree. Instant CU + CO = better version of asylum, also provides damage mitigation and coupled with diurnal aspected helios = insanely powerful hots. Earthly star = "free" and stronger version of cure 3 that doesn't generate aggro, but requires you to plan a few seconds ahead. I mean...you can argue that earthly star and CU are "harder" to use, but they are very much comparable to other whm tools and are better in almost any possible scenario. Also, synastry.

Lillies from Stones would be cool. But what is the point if even 3 lillies' cooldown reduction is pretty much meaningless outside of Asylum. It's a 6s reduction on Benison, 12s on Tetra and Assize, 24s on Asylum. The only significant reduction is with Asylum. Lillies' biggest issue isn't how they're generated but rather, their effect.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zuzu-bq

Lillies from Stones would be cool. But what is the point if even 3 lillies' cooldown reduction is pretty much meaningless outside of Asylum. It's a 6s reduction on Benison, 12s on Tetra and Assize, 24s on Asylum. The only significant reduction is with Asylum. Lillies' biggest issue isn't how they're generated but rather, their effect.

---

Agreed, they amount to the same sort of thing as AST essential dignity reducing the cooldown of lightspeed, which is a minor mechanic compared to their signature card skills.

But again, im afraid making them so readily available through spamming stone spells, will just make them even less effective in execution.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lastelli

Why not?

SCH: the aetherpact gauge is mostly filled using energy drains (dps);
AST: weaving cards and healing abilities was made easier by shortening malefic 3 cast time (dps).

It is pretty obvious to me that at this point SE finally acknowledged that healers are supposed to dps, to the point that doing dps is beneficial both for AST and SCH from a gameplay perspective.

---

Preface: For the love of god no one take this as me suggesting healers shouldn't DPS, please - Of course I'm hitting things with rocks as much as I can~

On the note of SCH: You can play entirely without using Energy Drain or Bane and fill your fairy gauge up just as fast via lustrate, soil, excog, and indom, unless ED fills it faster in which case someone hit me with their book cause I missed that entirely if so. Fairy gauge didn't change how ED was used at all, that's existed as is for a long time, and those may be relics of being tied to arcanist as it is. If a scholar is healing their brains out because everything is going south, they're still getting their gauge filled all the same via the healing abilities.

On the note of AST: They made the act of weaving easier on AST via lowering cast times on DPS spells. Single target casts are already lower than the GCD albeit not as much. I don't see this as 'encouragement to DPS' and more that Square acknowledges that healers DO dps in raids and AST was clipping like a hedge trimmer as a result so we got the change to make them less miserable (this, of course, increased AST's DPS and I wouldn't be surprised if this came as a shock to them, but not the first time they're surprised at players optimizing what they're given). It's not quite the same thing. Square does know we DPS, yeah. The cleric stance change was a similar thing - it made the action of healers doing damage easier and less of a potential burden, but you don't see buffs to Cure based on damage.

Again, I don't personally have a problem with it. I just think we're more likely to see something along the lines of "Every spell has a 10% chance" than "Stone has a 50% chance."

For a long time I've seen Square be extremely cautious of anything that would 'goad' a new healer into thinking they have to be doing damage to access key parts of their class. Cards don't require it despite the malefic change, fairy gauge doesn't require it. This is why I don't think we'll see something specifically tied to damage abilities. I mean you go far enough back you'll see me wishing for something along the lines of Stone casts giving a stacking MP-reduction on Stoneskin so WHMs could stay in cleric stance a little easier and still toss out some tank healing. Always had resistance for the same reasons. "Something something requiring DPS to access a thingy."

Probably the best argument against this is ASTs were given lady/lord of crowns, and what else are they gonna do with an instant nuke than blow something up with it?

I just think we're less likely to see it tied to DPS specifically when there are other avenues still open that would accomplish the same thing - i.e. lily generation while playing well in a raid setting. I'd still rather have them on Aero than on Stone (if I had to pick one of those two) as another way to encourage healers who aren't DPSing to get a little something out of their best damage-per-cast spells.

The main problem with putting the Lily proc on Regen is Regen isn't gated to one target like the fairy is. That's also why I avoided Medica II. Aero spells have the same problem. Sure getting the proc multiple times per server tick would be great even if it's RNG based, but having played Bard I can see how frustrating that would be for an actual healer to have. Limiting it to on-cast would be healthier overall, and that still wouldn't be enough, ultimately. Maybe if Lilies were more granular like all of the other 0 to 100 job gauges that would be fine but I think that's the opposite of what people want.

That's why I went with Stone. Because you can only use it on one target, ever, and as you learn a fight you're using it more often than the Cure line and Medica rather than vice versa.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

The main problem with putting the Lily proc on Regen is Regen isn't gated to one target like the fairy is. That's also why I avoided Medica II. Aero spells have the same problem. Sure getting the proc per tick would be great even if it's RNG based, but limiting it to on-cast would be healthier overall, and that still wouldn't be enough, ultimately. Maybe if Lilies were more granular like all of the other 0 to 100 job gauges that would be fine but I think that's the opposite of what people want.

That's why I went with Stone. Because you can only use it on one target, ever, and as you learn a fight you're using it more often than the Cure line and Medica rather than vice versa.

---

I don't agree. You can see black mages at certain levels spreading their TC procs around anytime there's multiple mobs to warrant it that are spread out enough in order to both get DoTs rolling and double dip on extra proc chances, and similar effects causing procs in numerous other games. I'd argue it as far more interesting and dynamic than other options and something that helps teach healers to use their best spells accordingly in situations that require them.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Spending an extra GCD to keep regens up on two tanks in multi tank fights? Well here's other chances at lilies. Are these effects really so strong that you're thinking someone is gonna roll regen on 4 party members at all times? Goodness there's other ways to limit over generation of procs from things like this too, though I don't know if Square has coded any of them into their game yet.

Even then, for reasons stated above I don't think that a mechanic that leads to more lilies as you do less healing is a route Square will take, and a general % on cast would be what we'd get. Perhaps I'm wrong there, but haven't seen Square do similar things before.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Erakir

I don't agree. You can see black mages at certain levels spreading their TC procs around anytime there's multiple mobs to warrant it that are spread out enough in order to both get DoTs rolling and double dip on extra proc chances, and similar effects causing procs in numerous other games. I'd argue it as far more interesting and dynamic than other options and something that helps teach healers to use their best spells accordingly in situations that require them.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Spending an extra GCD to keep regens up on two tanks in multi tank fights? Well here's other chances at lilies. Are these effects really so strong that you're thinking someone is gonna roll regen on 4 party members at all times? Goodness there's other ways to limit over generation of procs from things like this too, though I don't know if Square has coded any of them into their game yet.

---

They aren't at the moment. People are clamoring for it to be stronger, however. As well as generating more of them. My concern is the same issue I have with BRD, which you know all too well. Feast or Famine variance that cuts into being able to reliably generate enough Lilies at specific moments in order to do something specific with your healing cooldowns that then becomes frustrating to deal with. Or winds up the same way it is now, doing nothing at all.

I think the best idea would be to simply make every healing GCD give one on cast, rather than any per-tick RNG proc, period. Start there, at the very least.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

AST doesn't need a Refresh to stay healthy if they're making use of lightspeed.
Earthly Start and Benefic II+Essential Dignity can get you full health. Collective can also spread shields.

It's similar results with minor inconveniences.

---

Giving the party a shield and spreading a single shield to other party members is different. Keep in mind that astrologian can't touch the keyboard/controller during Collective Unconsciousness to keep it active. Also, the fact you need three actions just to get one player up to full health is pretty telling.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lastelli

You're not very familiar with healing in hard content, are you?

All 3 healers need refresh for high level play. None need it for low level play. Of course, when discussing "balance" we talk about high level play.

---

White mage and scholar need Refresh less badly in high level play because they can reliably give themselves back MP. White mage has Thin Air and Assize, and scholar has Aetherflow and Energy Drain, and both have abilities that heal that don't use MP.

Astrologian has to get lucky and Draw the Ewer, then actually use it, to get MP back without using Lucid Dreaming. When I said astrologian has to rely on Refresh, I meant that it hits downtime caused by low/no MP faster compared to the other healers, thereby making it worse.

I had a situation in the Burn where I was glad I was whm recently. The tank pulled the usual first 2 sets of mobs, didn't use any CD's and dropped from 70k to less than 10k almost instantly. With the amount of damage he was taking, benediction was a no brainier and then pop Divine Bension after that. The no cast time double weave likely saved a wipe as even getting Lustraste/excog/Aldo would have likely had the tank down with no CD's up.

Maybe that's whm's niche, making up for bad tanks that don't use CD's. Of course for ones that can't hold aggro we all know what happens to WHM, but this one could hold aggro, When I had the same as a sch, party wiped although tank said "my bad".