Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

My Oppinion may differ But i see WHM in Stormblood as a very strong healer as it looks now. But the Lilie Mechanic is definitly lacking.

You should Consider adding differnet bonuses from lilies to different Spells.

i.e.
Regen with Lilie = Regen + Tenacity up/direct Hit up
Cure with lilie = Cure + short regen Effect
Cure2 with Lielei = Cure2 + Shield
Medica with Lilie = Medica +regen effect
Medica2 + Lilie = Medica2 + Confession stacks
Raise +Lilie = Raise + arrise(aute Raise on next death)
Assize + Lilie = Assize + Assize Cooldown reduced
Tertagramaton +lillie = Tetragramaton +Tetragramaton Cooldown reduces
Asylum + Lilie = Asylum + damagereduction (like Astros)

And so on you get the idea.


And also how you generate Lilies, you should generate them throu more spells not only Cure and Cure 2.

Also WHM got stripped of essential Skills and has to get them back thour Class actions. wich leaves no room fo new Class action. Please consider leaving some skills native to WHM like Shrouds of saints and Divine Seal and esuna, so we can use the new Class skills as well.

Next
Confession stacks. Having them only build up throu Cure and Cure 2 is bad. They need to build also throu the other heals like assize medica and the other healing skills.

In order to provide some raid utility, why not give WHMs classic FF spells like Brave and Faith?

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

This is a great idea honestly. To add to this, make confessions be gatherable through AOE healing and have an effect. Something like increases healing on the target based the amount of them.One of WHMs mechanics then becomes keeping these stack up on all players. Plenary now becomes something to upkeep on all targets as well as a huge AOE burst heal that you can dish out constantly.
It would be very strong and really push home the healer specialist idea IMO.

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Wouldn't that requiring weakening the heal so that it remains balanced? Making it not consume Confession would mean that you'd have a free technically AoE heal active whenever the cooldown expires, and it we're going that route you should probably make is supplemental to other heals.

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Since people are throwing in suggestions, I'll do so as well:

Traits

52 Secret of the Lily - Grants a 30% chance that a Lily is added to your healing gauge upon the execution of Cure, Cure II, Cure III or Medica. Lilies will increase your spell speed by 5% per lilies stacked. Lilies also empower certain abilities upon execution, at which time the lilies are removed.

---Stoneskin (see below)
---Asylum - Extends the duration of Asylum by 3s per lily upon execution.
---Assize - Increases MP restored by 3.33% per lily upon execution (10% at 3 lilies).
---Tetragrammaton - Cooldown reduced by 6/12/25% per lily upon execution.
---Divine Benison (see below)

68 Secret of the Lily II - Using Cure, Cure II, Cure III, or Medica now reduce the remaining cooldown on Asylum, Assize, and Divine Benison by 3s per use.

Abilities

34 Stoneskin - Creates a barrier around target that absorbs damage totaling to 12% of target's maximum HP. Gains an additional 2% per lily active upon execution. All lilies in your Healing Gauge are lost upon execution. Cooldown: 45s.

62 Thin Air - stays as is

64 Stone IV - stays as is

66 Divine Benison - Places a barrier around target that restores HP from the next direct attack. Cure Potency: 500. Can absorb one additional attack per lily active upon execution. All lilies in your Healing Gauge are lost upon execution. Duration: 10s. Cooldown: 60s.

68 Solace - Restores target's HP. Cure potency: 150. Cooldown: 1.5s. Additional effect: Grants target a Confession, increasing healing received by 2% for 30s. Caps at 3 stacks.

70 Plenary Indulgence - Restores HP of all nearby party members. Potency varies with current Confession stack. Upon execution, all Confession stacks are lost. Cooldown: 30s.

Notes

- Stoneskin comes back as a cooldown that becomes very powerful once the lily system is introduced.
- Divine Benison would change to be basically Earth Shield from WoW, but scaling with lilies.
- Solace has the same GCD as Mudras, so a WHM could quickly spam it to get Confession stacks on a party member. The quick cooldown should also allow its use between other heals, and the extra +healing received would be a bonus.
- Removing the RNG would probably call for nerfing some of the healing potencies, but I'm just spitballing here.

The lilies mechanic makes no sense since some skills are directly GATED behind the need to have them while also you have skills that are not gated (like assize tetra asylum and so on that you would want to use pretty much as soon as they come of cooldown) that will use up lilies anyway.
So essentialy you are locking us out of using the non gated skills in order to use the gated ones. Cherry on top being that in order to remove said gates you have to play even more suboptimal by spamming cures for a 20% chance procc (LOL) + not using non gated skills in fear of losing lilies...

I know we joke a lot about content being locked out in this game and its various systems but this is quite extreme design imho and seems like our class designer hates whm with a passion.

I'm gonna make another suggestion, maybe something good can come out of this thread if the devs take some ideas.

Some other simple changes that I think could be done:

LV.46 Aero II and LV.58 Aero III
Change potency of both to 40 and make it a 30 seconds duration to accomodate changes to Stone III and Quake (see below).

LV.52 Secret of the Lilies
Grants a 50% chance that a Lily is added to your healing gauge upon the execution of Cure, Cure II, Cure III. Each lily increases spell-based HP restoration by 5%, totalling 15% at 3 stacks.

Why it's not overpowered:
In adition to Largesse being added to the role-actions (a direct nerf to WHM Divine Seal), AST has an innate healing bonus on their Sects (making their heals on par if not better than the new potency WHM spells) and SCH has acess to both Dissipation and Fey Illumination, that when paired together with Largesse grants a 60% increase to spell-based HP restoration.

LV.54 Stone III
Change potency to 225 to accomodate the loss of Stone IV and addition of Quake (see below).

LV.62 Thin Air
Good addition that fixes the mana management problem.

LV.64 Quake (instead of Stone IV)
150 potency AoE OGCD. 60 seconds cooldown. Applies "Earth Vulnerability Up" to targets, making them take 20% more damage from Earth-based spells. Duration: 30 seconds.

Why it's not overpowered:
With the removal of the damage on Fluid Aura, WHM lost a free 150 potency OGCD every 30 seconds. The addition of Quake would not only make the DPS rotation better but also help solidify WHM as a AoE powerhouse. The 'Earth Vulnerability Up' would make up for the lack of a fourth tier spell, maintaining Stone III as our main DPS skill.

LV.66 Divine Benison
OGCD. Consumes one lily stack to create a barrier around target that absorbs damage totaling 10% of target's maximum HP. Duration: 15 seconds. Cooldown: 5 seconds.

Why it's not overpowered:
WHMs lost Stoneskin, a spammable 10% shield, a valuable tool for some encounters even with the high MP required. By consuming only one lily and having the barrier % reduced to affect that, a WHM could easily choose between maintaining his bonus to healing from the lilies or spending them to shield party members in circustances where mitigation is better than active healing. By only consuming one stack, the WHM could shield multiple party members, but still not as proficiently as Nocturnal AST or SCH.

LV.68 Secret of the Lilies II
Reduces Assize, Tetragrammaton and Plenary Indulgence cooldown by 5 seconds everytime a lily is consumed to use Divine Benison.

Why it's not overpowered:
This would help incentivate the use of lilies for Divine Benison in exchange for cooldown reductions, preventing that players sit at 3 stacks at all times.

LV.70 Plenary Indulgence
Restores HP to all nearby party members. Potency depends on how many lilies are stacked.

No lilies: 200 potency.
One lily: 300 potency.
Two lilies: 400 potency.
Three lilies: 500 potency.

Lilies are not consumed when this ability is used.
Cooldown: 90 seconds.

Why it's not overpowered:
This is supposed to be WHM's version of Indomitability. By tying the potency to lily stacks, the players could plan their healing by consuming the lilies when this skill is on cooldown to quicken the recast timer, or keep the lilies for maximum potency.

Conclusion:
While very tentative, I think that these changes would make WHM a lot more fun and especially more engaged with the new job gauge.

By having lilies affect healing potency, WHM would have a very powerful but fluctuating toolkit at it's disposal. These changes would also make the DPS rotation more interesting, all while keeping the job as a PURE HEALER, something that SE wants them to be.

Honestly, I think that the Lilly system is ok -- it's essentially an mp management tool. I do wish stone iv would give some chance to proc lillies as well but I can be ok without that. It's not flashy or overpowered like ast; I'm ok with that. I'm ok with confessions -- it's not going to really ever be useful as an aoe heal, but as a tank healing move, it's good for mp management and for movement. And in times where there's something a little healing intensive followed by time to dps, the instant cast is nice. That's the extent of the changes. It's underwhelming but I can be ok with it. Ast is becoming very OP, so in relation, it's upsetting. I wish that whm would get some raid utility but obviously se doesn't like that idea. I hate that whm started with an 18% stoneskin, then 10% (and be honest the cast time reduction didn't matter much at all since it was always a move you used very preemptively, and now we get 15% instant cast shield but on a tetra-sized cooldown. That feels like a bit of a slap in the face. The cool down needs reduced or take it off the Lilly system.

There are three scenarios in which I feel like it could be possible to favor taking a whm just as much or more than another healer in progression raiding just considering the trade offs for taking one healer or another: 1. Whm dps for skilled players in a raid setting matches the other healers dps plus the added dps from their raid utilities, or at least pretty close, with a sub scenario that this could easily be possible if there's more aoe dps to be done 2. Whm healing particularly do to the extra ability to heal the tank with confessions ends up making a solo healer comp during progression on the hardest fights more viable for skilled players (not great for the game). Or 3. Nocturnal ast becomes the class to play because it looks pretty overpowered, and sch shields don't stack, and therefore perhaps whm becomes the better partner (and this last possible scenario is just sad).

The first scenario would be better than the other two, so if nothing changes mechanic-wise for whm, please at least ensure that. Tweak some dps potencies if necessary, or add more aoe opportunities if there aren't enough.

Now what I mean by taking one over another based on trade offs is this: if skilled whm dps is significantly less than skilled ast dps + dps from raid utility or sch dps + their utility and all healer combinations are viable enough for the damage output in progression raiding, then I would help my team more by learning a new healing job and swapping it. Right now at the end of heavensward, with the difficulty level of creator savage, I felt ok staying as a white mage because my group progressed at a rate we were mostly all proud of. But it looks to me like the disparity between whm and the other healers in terms of progression rate is only rising (barring the possible scenarios I mentioned before). If that is the case, I will swap to ast to pair with my favorite sch.

That should mean something. I AM a white mage. I buy little trinkets like my car decal to proudly show that off. But if I feel like I should swap because there is too great a disparity, I will feel pretty awful, but I will do it because I don't want -not- swapping to be a significant contributor to a lower progression rate for my team. And since I'm not even 50% convinced that any of the scenarios I mentioned -will- be the case, I've already started leveling and learning ast.

Not happy about this either. Regens/Medica 2 keeps hp topped up in most cases, coupled with Divine Seal even better which i thought this was an ability unique to whm to help boost the burst heals.... not anymore....

Hate how clerics has been done too, from that healer damage is based on mind now? if that's the case, there's no excuse for any healer NOT to dps, which i thought that they didn't want to force healers to dps.

There's just too many skill stripped from whm and put on other healers tbh.

Give whm frikkin Graniteskin back already.

I would like it if the lilies regenerate over time. Each 10s one lily so that we have after 30 seconds three lilies. This would be disable the RNG and wouldn't affect the players playstyle.

Give us a buff (for the whm only) if we have have a certain amount of lilies for a dam% and heal% buff (1=5%, 2=10%, 3=15%) and add something special to the skills if it use up the lilies and not something cheap like CD reduce.

As for the Confession stacks: Every Spell at usage should grant a rng stack. I don't like to track down the stacks on partymembers, the stacks should be shown at the players bar. So if we have gathered a certain amount of stacks, make Plenary Indulgence availbe to use. And for the damagedealer among us add a second lvl 70 skill: Mega Holy! (use also Confession stacks) :D

I'd love to see the Lillies scrapped entirely, they don't seem to have anything to do with WHM thematically whatsoever. Yes the Padjal are somewhat about nature but I don't feel any job connection to flowers as a WHM at all. Get rid and give us a Bravery/Faith (WHM abilities based in actual FF lore definitely part of our identity) system that can buff physical/magic damage for the party whilst increasing our healing or something.

Ok, I'll put in my 2 cents as well even if I'm sure most of it has been said.

A. The new role system means nothing to a WHM. We gain nothing from it. In fact they more or less stripped us for parts and now we'll be forced to buy back our own toys while the other healers get new shiny ones of their own on top of access to ours. The biggest hit to me is Divine Seal. That's a Job specific, quest locked ability that they have taken away without giving us anything in its place.

B. The lily system is bogus. You can't/shouldn't base a major mechanic on a low percentage (20%), tacked onto an RNG proc (crit), on a few moves that it isn't logical to spam (cure/cure II). Not only that but the reward isn't worth diddly squat. Honestly I can see myself ignoring the lily system completely as it stands now because it isn't worth playing inefficiently and holding cool downs for the sake of a chance to get lower cool downs. Either the reward needs a serious rework or the effort to get it needs to come way down and that's the bare minimum. Personally, I'd say its both.

C. Confession is...a semi neat concept that, again, is executed poorly due to the fact that it procs only off of our Cure/Cure II. Why are they trying to excommunicate our AoE/Hot skills? I've read some people supposing this is because square wants WHM to do more cure spamming but if that is the case, we have even more problems than I thought.

D. Is any other WHM kinda tired of being the most visually dull healer? Its like the Charlie Brown Halloween special. Everyone else: I GOT CANDY. I GOT A QUARTER. I GOT A CHOCOLATE BAR. White mages:...I got a rock. With all the focus on spending time with our current tank and healing classes by not adding new ones, I expected more than a few vague lights and slightly redesigned rocks. Especially when AST can open up a galaxy. WHM's are harnessing the freakin' power of the elementals and flinging it at their enemies but Square seems to shy away from doing anything to express that other than dull rocks. Why don't our big heals explode in leaves or flower petals? Why isn't ensuna a rush of cleansing water? Something on par with the AST in terms of design . Instead I'm left feeling like our moves are the stock photo's the came with the frame rather than anything original.

If I sound bitter, I probably am honestly. I'll admit that I wasn't impressed with how WHM was treated coming into HW and nothing was really ever addressed. Still, I stuck with it and had hope that SB would finally set things right. Only it seems we got shafted and so my patience is rather thin with the whole situation at this point. I'm hoping since they have half acknowledged how many complaints there are and that our concerns seem to be echoed outside the forums, things will be adjusted pre launch. I know a rework is unlikely, but hopefully something to make it feel worth while and exciting to experience the content as a WHM rather than being envious of everyone else or abandoning the class in favor of one Square doesn't seem to hate. I almost fall into the camp of 'scrap it and start over'. That's how far off base the changes feel.

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Originally Posted by Hikuras

Are we sure KisaiTenshi isn't an alt and she actually does have a 60 whm somewhere and is only posting on an alt account due to a ban or something? Cause it could be that?

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Just stop feeding the troll and it'll go away eventually. Everything it says is designed to infuriate the already agitated whm mains voicing their (very valid) concerns here.

I'm a little surprised that the 'new' stuff that WHM got was so badly implemented. What's with all the randomness and forced use of Cure I and Cure II? Also with the way cross role has been adjusted, I think most jobs need more slots to accommodate for what they lost but ESPECIALLY for WHM since they lost more than they can get back with the cross role actions being limited to 5.

SE CANNOT place the lily procs, nor confession procs on Regens and Medica II EVER...

Lets be reasonable. The main concerns with everything being based on Cures is the worry that EITHER:

• A: enough situation will not nominally & efficiently occur that will demand sufficient number of cure spamming sequences for the lily/confession system to be noticeably useful.
  
  
  or
  
  
  
• B: inefficient/abuse players will sit there and spam cures over and over and over and over trying to force procs, meanwhile a set of regens and ogcd and spending that remaining time dpsing would have been a MUUUCH better use of their gcds!!

Both A and B are legitimate concerns.... However what most of ya'll are not considering is how changing the system to regens would make it even worst and I'll show u how.

• Scenario 1: they place procs on regens and medic II at a nominal rate. What's to keep inefficient/abusive players from spamming excessive medica II on raid that's not dealing with dmg every 30 sec; and playing multiple regens among several raid members? You'd get lilies and confession and free raid PI's coming out your asshole!!
  
  
  
  
• Scenario 2: B/C SE DOESN'T WANT SCENARIO 1 TO HAPPEN.... they significantly reduce the proc rate off of regens/medica II.....now you have the opposite issue. EFFICIENT PLAYERS that would never think to spam unecessary medica II and place 8 regens when only 1 tank is taking dmg will NEVER SEE A PROC...making the system completely useless for their efficient play...

There is no way to create a regen base proc system that both rewards efficient players and AT THE SAME TIME address inefficient/abuse players....IT JUST WONT WORK....the amount of work around you'd need to reward one and punish the other is way too much....just no....let the regen concept go.

And compare the two: Which is more inefficient/abusive? Spaming single target cure1/2 ?? or spamming medica II every 30 sec and casting regen on the whole party in the meantime? (And don't say, "nobody will do that!!" .....are you serious, right now???:mad::mad::mad::mad:)



IF SE is Dead-set on wanting the lily/confession procs to be RNG it has to stay on cure1/2 and CANNOT have anything to do with any HoTs.

Next let's talk about proc rates...

What about an idea like this again... we have lilies as our mechanic now... so does that mean we should have a sort of plant theme too?

Vitality of the Oak
Effect: Stoneskin-esque.
Reduces all damage taken by the target by 10% until it has absorbed an amount of damage equal to 20% of the target's max health.
Reduced the resource cost of skills (TP/MP) by 10% while active.

This skill can consume 3 lilies to make it party-wide.

-- it's not a barrier, but a limited mitigation buff. Not as strong as a tank's, and it wouldn't last for very long on a tank, but it might last enough on say a DRK or PLD who's thirsting for resources and needs a bit more time to get a combo off to restore mp/etc. Most effective on DPS, but they can't get hit much before it falls off. I pulled the numbers out of my ass, so they can be tweaked for the sake of balance, naturally. But it's something a bit different.

Of every rework and added skills to current and new jobs, WHM is the only job right now that does not bring any raid utility, looking away from the 15% shield that stacks with SCH shield, in any form that either boosts someone damage, give them attack speed etc.

Yes I understand that WHM always have been that pure healer, but some classic spells that WHM sometimes had in other games were Haste for faster attacks on party members, Faith for magical damage or Bravery for physical.
You could even make the effect of those 3 spells gets enhanced further depending on many lilies was spent on the cast. +5% Haste, up to +15%, magic/physical +5% - 15%, but then perhaps limit one spell to one party member and or make them only use lilies to be able to cast, and generating lilies takes time, to help balance it out to not make it too overpowered of course.

They say every job is viable in any scenario standard comp. Yes its true and I agree, but if you look at it from the view of a group that might want to delve deeper into optimizing themselves then an AST / SCH build is kinda "forced" on them again because WHM does not bring any enhancements to player damage stats in some form.

Many ppl are looking at 20% and thinking...

"That's too low, we're never gonna noticeably rely on it! It just will be a miracle if we get one at all!!"

But is that really the case? Let me list you our odds of getting 1,2, & 3 lilies and/or confessions

(WARNING: these probabilities assume the proc rates are independent of each other. If however they are mutually exclusive, for example like parry/dodge/block, these numbers will not predict the likelihood of lilies and confessions.)


Scenario 1 Chances of getting at LEAST 1 proc out of X attempts

• For X=3; Chances of getting at least 1 proc:48.8%
• For X=4; Chances of getting at least 1 proc:59.0%
• For X=5; Chances of getting at least 1 proc: 67.2%
• For X=6; Chances of getting at least 1 proc:73.8%
• For X=7; Chances of getting at least 1 proc:79.0%
• For X=10; Chances of getting at least 1 proc:89.3%
• For X=15; Chances of getting at least 1 proc:96.5%

Between 3 to 5 GCDs you have a 58% chance of getting a lily/confession and that's low to you??? Or you think 3-5 GCDs in a 30 sec window is a spam???hmm...

Scenario 2 Chances of getting at LEAST 2 proc out of X attempts

• For X=3; Chances of getting at least 2 proc:10.4%
• For X=4; Chances of getting at least 2 proc:18.1%
• For X=5; Chances of getting at least 2 proc:26.3%
• For X=6; Chances of getting at least 2 proc:34.5%
• For X=7; Chances of getting at least 2 proc:42.3%
• For X=10; Chances of getting at least 2 proc:62.4%
• For X=15; Chances of getting at least 2 proc:83.3%

Now!! here we can start our REASONABLE complaints without even having to see the next tier of probabilities!! It's extremely unlikely from here on out to get 2 or more confessions/lilies, and the reward we get for this EXTREMELY rare occurrence DOES NOT MATCH the RNG!! (Lilies will get its own separate post...) Getting 1 confession is highly probable and quiet rewarding, every 15 sec rewarding (if we get one). But getting 2 confessions is not at all likely without a serious spam of 10+ GCDs within a 30 sec window...to make it worse, we're only rewarded with a measly 100 more potency??....hmm...I not like that:mad:



Scenario 3 Chances of getting at LEAST 3 proc out of X attempts

• For X=3; Chances of getting at least 3 proc:00.8% LULZ:cool:
• For X=4; Chances of getting at least 3 proc:02.7% LULZ^2:confused:
• For X=5; Chances of getting at least 3 proc:05.8% TRIPLE LULZ:p
• For X=6; Chances of getting at least 3 proc:09.9% THIS AINT MEANT TO BE:mad:
• For X=7; Chances of getting at least 3 proc:14.8% meh
• For X=10; Chances of getting at least 3 proc:32.2% kinda noticeable
• For X=15; Chances of getting at least 3 proc:60.2% about damn time.....
  

.....No words...#SE_fix_it.....OK A LOT OF WORDS!!! getting 3 lilies/confession outside of 10+ gcds (in a 30 sec window when it comes to confessions) is close to impossible!! And again the reward (...lilies will get its own post) confession jumps from initial potency of 400 for 1 confession to now 600!? Wow thx SE U gave us 200 more potency for basically winning the lottery:cool:. Never mind we had to spam 10 GCDs in a 30 sec time frame.


In Conclusion
The probability of getting 1 proc of lilies/confessions is very likely and encompasses all progression scenarios and nominal dungeon runs and even SPEED-TOP-TIER-RAID-FARMING-THAT-REALLY-DON'T-NEED-SHIT-HELP runs too!;) However getting 2 or more lilies/confessions is sooo rare!! And the REWARD for their occurrences are lackluster!! There needs to be something done to make the occurrence more prevalent. Either make the reward POP !! MAKE IT A HUGE GAME CHANGER!! Or make it happen more consistently.

Next we'll talk about lilies and everything lilies....

You say "what's stopping people just spreading Regen around on players not needing it?" as if people can't just sit casting Cure on players that don't need it.

They can very much be on regen. Maybe on application or fall-off, but there's no inherent difference between Cure and Regen for this purpose.

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Originally Posted by Metsonm

You say "what's stopping people just spreading Regen around on players not needing it?" as if people can't just sit casting Cure on players that don't need it.

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At least someone said it.

People who are playing suboptimally will probably continue to play suboptimally. However, if Lilies are tied to Regens rather than Cures, then the better players can actually get some of the benefit (even if the benefit is terrible as of right now) as opposed to completely ignoring the mechanic otherwise AND lose ability gated behind the liles. Sure, spreading Regens and Medica II is also suboptimal, BUT those players that are playing optimally to the best of their ability are getting some benefits from the Lily system.

The lily system is far from perfect. The proc rate is too low (on top of being a proc on a proc) for too little a benefit (a Spear? We get a stinking Spear?! AND THEY ALWAYS GET CONSUMED?!). The WHM lost so many skills to the cross role system and didn't get enough back. The WHM has no identity. The Lily was their attempt at giving them one, and it failed miserably. "Pure Healer" doesn't work in this game. It never worked in this game. The only way it could work in this game is if they had team support OUT THE WAZOO to make up for lower personal DPS. Guess what? WHM has THE HIGHEST. This flies IN THE FACE of the WHM's design.

If they want a "pure healer", the AST should have been it. The AST actually HAS team support, a ton of it! They can TP regen, MP regen, Defense boost, Haste boost, and damage boost. On top of that, they aren't actively encouraged to ignore most of their kit to support the party.

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Originally Posted by Skye_

They did this in 11 too. Whm was killed off.

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You probably won't see this, but WHM99/SCH49 is pretty much the only viable healer in XI's endgame, which I think is what XIV developers are aiming to not have happen.

Honestly, if RNG is the route that the designers decide to follow then you'll delight nobody planning to go into serious content. No one maps their cooldowns or healing abilities to things that can proc or happen on chance-- especially not if it's a negligible boon on top of it. No matter how likely it is to proc, if it's anything short of a hundred percent, people will be reluctant to rely on it.

You can see this being reflected in the Astrologian's toolkit of The Bole and The Spear even prior to The Balance changes; RNG defensive mechanics were always unnecessary as even if a group decided to rely on something occurring with a high chance, all it takes is that off-chance of something not going right due to a random number for a wipe to happen and consistency to fly out the window (something of which is of great import in harder content as there's already plentiful human error).

Last post we listed the likelihood of getting a lily proc. However those number are a bit misleading when you factor in what it is the Lilies actually do...

We all should know by now that lilies reduce the recast timer on the next single use of one CD on this list:

• Divine Bension - 15% shield on a 60 sec recast
  
• Asylum - A 6 yalms radius, 100 potency fix-area-of-effect regen for 24 sec on a 90 sec recast
  
• Assize - 300 potency aoe heal and aoe dmg on a 60 sec recast
  
• Tetragrammaton - 700 potency single target heal on a 60 sec recast

We learned it's very likely to get at LEAST one lily in a 30 sec window off of 3-5 cure gcds, which is applicable in all game content (FATES, hunts,dungeons, 24-man, extremes, progression raiding, raid farming). And avg of 58%!!:cool: HOWEVER the issue isn't the likelihood of getting a lily....it's what 1 lil can do for us :(. One lil expunged on one of the 4 listed cds will reduce your recast time by 2 sec for your 60 sec recasts and 3sec for Asylum's 90 sec recast (Actual reductions are 2.4sec and 3.6sec respectively if SE allows fractional reductions). So let's put this all in perspective "you have about a 58% chance that your next CD used will be on a 58 sec recast (or 87 sec recast for Asylum):mad::mad::mad::mad: SE PLEASE.... what are we gonna do with 2-3 sec ~50% of the times we use ONE of our cds????

BUT WAIT!!! You don't like 2-3 sec nominally? How about 5 secs reduction off of Asylum and Assize? Does that sound nice!? IT SURE DOES! But....they made it 20% off a crit....lulz:p:p:p. Let's put it this way. Even healers that stack 1k crit rate stats only avg 12-15% actual crit rate. So if you're only gonna proc 20% of the time off of an already 12-15% of the time crits, then you might as well bank of getting 2+ lilies while you're at it (the chances are virtually the same!!) LOL:cool::cool: Basically Go back to the first post with the rates and multiply everything by 12-15% (assuming you even have 1k crit stat on your healer gear...). The numbers are bad. So don't count on getting that 5 sec...

My issue again isn't at all the rates!! It can be stuck behind this kind of RNG; but making it REWARDDING!!! Yes getting 1 lil is very very likely, but a 2-3sec reduction on JUST ONE CD is very very underwhelming...

Meanwhile getting 2+ lilies will be a miracle and getting the proc off crits will also be a miracle, but make these miracles FEEL like a MIRACLES!!

SUGGESTIONS

• 1 Lily: 10% (6-9 sec off of your 60-90 sec cds isn't GOOD but it isn't BAD...it's just ...Hmm... and that's ok!)
• 2 Lilies: 25% ( decent....might be better at 30%....but 25 is decent!)
• 3 Lilies: no recast!! (OP result for an impossible odd!)
  
• 20% chance of reduction off crit cure rewards needs to either be able to stack! Meaning you can get multiple 5 secs off! or give us a flat 10 sec off.

As a WhiteMage Main, I personally cant believe what is being done to White Mages, not only did white mage get dumped on for the entire expansion of heavensward, Im afraid it is going to continue happening in stormblood as well.

- Because if you saw the role abilities, white mage lost 3 core abilities, like Esuna, Shroud of saints, and divine seal, and now those three are in the healer role abilities, which both scholar and astro can use, I dont understand how square enix thinks that it is okay for those two healers to have an extra mana regen ability " Lucid dreaming / Shroud of saints " while still keep their own spells that give them mana... and more over, have divine seal, which gives them extra heals... scholar already has an ability like that, " when he sacrifice his fairy " so why give him another one??

we will buff white mage in 4.0 they said... this is not buffing...

It appears to me that none of the game devs play WHM as their main, else I cannot see how this proposal to make WHM a specialised healer in comparison to the other two healers to be a sensible development for this class.

As many have pointed out - there is currently no need and will never be a need for a specialised healer as all healer combinations need to be viable for endgame healing.

If any of the devs actually main WHM, this idea would had been extinguished the moment it was suggested. Or at least, the roles of the other healers tweaked such that this is a viable development for WHM.

To me, there are only two logical options:

1) Make all healers homogeneous in terms of functions, so either
a) ALL healers are hybrid healer/dps or healer/support combinations, and that includes WHM.
b) ALL healers become specialised healers with different playstyles.

OR

2) WHM is the only specialised healer and MUST be one of the two healers in any endgame content.

To me, I see no other viable options to balance healers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Megurineluki20

snip

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To be fair, Aetherflow from scholar was nerfed from 20% -> 10% and Luminferous Aethyr (the AST Shroud) was removed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MizArai

Thanks for the correction. :-) I was trying to point out to someone else that WHM lost more than they thought to the role skills while also acknowledging how much healers as a whole are losing to it. It seems counter-intuitive to me to take things that healers need in their toolkits (that we already had built into each healer) and throw them on a shared list of skills to choose from.

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Honestly speaking for myself, Synastry lost nothing, I used it for times when I needed solid healing on two targets, whether it be the tanks in AC4 or Sephirot add phases, or back in AG1 days when two dps could be kept up through missile drops with it. Dont think ive ever used it for the healing boost, just like on WHM I almost never used Divine Seal, and probably will only have Largesse for SCH/Noct when Im actually in need of boosting my heals, not just making my regens even more stupid strong.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

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I am WHM hand in France and I love my job! Thank you very much, for your very pertinent analysis! I do not speak English enough to propose precise solutions, and I find yours very interesting. With these solutions among other things, I am sure the whm will be magnificent.

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Originally Posted by javid

Meanwhile getting 2+ lilies will be a miracle and getting the proc off crits will also be a miracle, but make these miracles FEEL like a MIRACLES!!

SUGGESTIONS

• 1 Lily: 10%
• 2 Lilies: 25%
• 3 Lilies: no recast!!
  
• 20% chance of reduction off crit cure rewards needs to either be able to stack! Meaning you can get multiple 5 secs off! or give us a flat 10 sec off.

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While "any port in a storm" applies to buffs to WHM at this point... I really feel like whatever they do, it should synergize (sorry) with WHM's kit. As of right now the system is flat out contradictory, even if the numbers are buffed hugely it won't affect the problem with the concept. At the very least, let WHMs continue to build lilies without effectively locking out some of WHM's best skills.

Hello everyone, I decided to register here so I can post on this thread as well. I'm not sure if the developers are going to read this or not, but I'll gladly share my point of view and ideas about whm 4.0 nonetheless. I love white mage, white mage is my love, and not because of its simplicity. I like to divide jobs into themes, and I like white mage's theme - a mage who is connected to nature, divine, angelic, pure, white <3 Isn't it perfect? In my opinion, the theme of the white mage is beautiful, and what I had expected for white mage, or at least hoped for, was that it would follow this same theme in Stormblood. It sort of did, but... Sadly, I was very disappointed when I heard about the changes, because I feel like I have less things to play with as a white mage now.

Feedback on the new WHM skills:
I don't like the argument that claims that because scholar and astrologian are more complex, they should be rewarded with better tools. Some of the time, if not quite often, it is actually easier to play scholar or astrologian because their tools are simply more powerful. Yes, they have more things to play with, but isn't this a good thing? In the long run, it makes their job easier to achieve. Plus, it's more fun when you have more toys to play with. For this reason, I find that some of the new white mage skills make it more difficult for the white mage to do their job, while being unneeded to begin with. For example, the new Confession system sounds to me so unnecessary and not fun to play at all, as it gives no rewarding whatsoever. Plenary Indulgence 400/500/600 potency heal means very little to me, when I can just cast 2-3 medica's instead - much more simple and effective. If anyone tried to play with these presented confession stacks, wouldn't it be a waste of time? Furthermore, I like the look of the new skill Divine Benison. It is very nice and goes well with the white mage theme. However, since we already had a similar skill before, I find it a nerf for our Stoneskin. Stoneskin was so... iconic? It went with our theme perfectly because of the earth theme to it, it makes me sad to think it's gone. It can have great use in fights when there's a tank buster, and you can reapply it whenever you want. The new Divine Benison is on cool down, so only one person can have it on them - which is a huge nerf. I won't be able to reapply it immediately when it drops. When you look at our cousin, the astrologian, he already has an instant shield + bole card, which is far superior than what we currently have.

The new skill Thin Air is very powerful and welcome.

The new lilies mechanic is pretty on the screen, but I will probably ignore it, as I don't spam cures. If something procs, then yay. Otherwise, I won't really care about losing or gaining flowers.

Feedback on general healer gameplay:
I was disappointed to find out that the healers will lose virus, while the DPS classes will gain new mitigation skills. I feel as though DPS are robbing me MY gameplay. It should be *my thing* to prevent damage and heal, not theirs. This will make things easier for me, which I dislike.

Feedback on new role actions:
I feel that some of the new role actions shouldn't be role actions at all. For example: Shroud of Saints was perfect for our WHM theme, it's a shame it was renamed and put into role actions where WHM will have to take it back and therefore, waste one role action slot for it. I think that many feel the same as me, as astrologian had a similar action with its own theme too. It's a loss to both. Similar thing happened to Esuna, all jobs had it with a name that suited them, why rename it and have it as a role action, wasting another role action slot? These two skills are mendatory for all healers, except scholar might not really need Lucid Dream as he already has Aetherflow which works great already. Overall, I think that protect should be available to all healer jobs as default and virus should return to healers too. Divine Seal was a white mage job skill, why is it in role actions is beyond me.

Feedback on WHM lack of skills:
As mentioned before, I fear white mage has too little skills now to play with. The job is less engaging and have less things to do. In my opinion, I'd like to have more skills to play with. I am not afraid of 'complexity', complexity comes with great rewards once you master it for sure, and will be easier and more fun in the long run. I'd love to have more skills in the WHM theme similar to the new skills we are given but different and more fun overall. The skills should have to do with elements or divinity for sure. I also like the idea of white mages having a party buff Haste skill that is like Sprint for dodging aoes, that can be useful for everyone.

I think it is a mistake to remove stoneskin. Instead of removing it, there should be a way to enhance it with lilies - like the ability to stack 2 stoneskins when there are 2 white mages in a party. It could turn into a useful and powerful shield.

Give white mages a 'mini-god-mode' stance: Instead of confessions stacking on other party members, have them stack on white mage like summoner, once they reach 3 stacks, they can go into a special (10-15 seconds) stance that will grant them healing and damage bonuses. Like... 10% more self damage output + 10% healing potency + self defense goes up 20%, and have them grow wings like angels. That could be fun and also aesthetically pleasing <3

Overall feeling:
When I run into an astrologian (which happens a lot recently)... I do feel I bring less things to the party. I actually feel inferior, which is not a great feeling while trying to have fun. I told people before that astrologian is over powered, but people used to dismiss me. Astrologian was buffed too much, it's no longer a support class, but it has better healing and damage output than both white mage and scholar. This is insane... to the point I think the new best composition in raids would be 2 astrologians. I will continue with white mage as my main in Stormblood and am looking forward to new changes and fixes for the current skills, as I do love it and I hope to continue loving it in Stormblood too. Thank you for reading.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Metsonm

You say "what's stopping people just spreading Regen around on players not needing it?" as if people can't just sit casting Cure on players that don't need it.

They can very much be on regen. Maybe on application or fall-off, but there's no inherent difference between Cure and Regen for this purpose.

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I'll be nice...

how many cures can you cast in 30 secs??? Let's assume a 2.0 GCD; in 30 sec you can cast 15 cures!! THATS a ton!!

ok............

how many ticks from HoTs can you cast in 30 secs on a 8 man party?? lets assume a 2.0 GCD: one medica II +11 regens; for total tick count within the 30 sec of.... 133 F#$KING TICKS

....NOW......which of the two looks more abusive? 15 attempts at getting a lily/confession in 30sec? or 133 attempts at getting a lily/confession in 30sec? ALSO... which of the two actually casted MORE GCDS?? 15 CURES GCDs? OR 12 GCDs on regen and medica combined???

DUDE ITS NOT EVEN CLOSE......not even......close......

The mechanics of Lilly are a but to RNG compared to the other healers.

AST, they have 6 buff cards, and can even exchange a card they don't want for a healing card or a Damage card, they have a decent amount of flexibility to go with the flow.

SCH, has a good amount of support and a nice addition of new abilities that aid even further in DPS.

WHM lacks any of this, while I imagine your thought is to have WHM not have to DPS, you shoot yourself in the foot by saying let's focus on Cures and ignore Stone, Aero I/II, Aero III/IV and Holy. In a way by pretending those don't exist you limit the potential of what a WHM could do.

If you use these abilities you could do the following.

Mechanic 1: Elemental Synergy. After using an Earth, Wind or Holy based action you next curative ability will be augmented.

Reason: Because of the design of WHM to already heal by a lot, adding a mechanic in which they weave in Damage to augment their curative spells in some way gives WHM more depth compared to the RNG mechanic which you currently have planned for them.

Mechanic 2:A stance which puts a limiter on WHM's healing say 20% and as time passes the gauge slowly builds up while in combat. This mechanic could in a sense by like NIN's auto-attack buildup of their gauge except this is a gauge that builds up overtime as long as the WHM is willing to put a -20% healing potency on the Cures. With the build up gauge you could then add another ability which gives WHM's control over when the exhaust their gauge. The lack of an option when it comes to exhausting resources also hurts WHM, AST can hold a card, redraw cards and have decent flexibility with their cards, yet WHM, with 3 Lille's is forced to use them if they want to use one of their OGC abiltiies. A WHM may want to wait for the right moment to use the Lilly since they have 0 input on when to activate it other than when they choose the ability that uses said mechanic.

Reason: WHM's are already capable of overhealing with ease, so why create mechanics which just make their heals even more OP? The Lille doesn't create a scenario of an uh oh button because of the way Confession and Lille's work, Confessions are to RNG that you have to actively cure/cureII allies in your party and then hope you can keep them up in the 30 second duration all for a pitiful 300-400-500 potency AOE cure. Which isn't the best payoff when you consier the AOE utility other jobs have like Indomitability, which is also instant, 400 potency, AOE cure, that just uses aetherflow. Meanwhile for WHM to get 300 potency for a target they need to have at least 1 confession up, meaning that this instant ability is pretty much worthless because of the effort it takes to just get 300 potency on all allies.

Mechanic 3: Same as above but instead introduce an Exhaust ability which "upgrades" Stone, Aero I/II, Aero III/IV, Holy and Fluid Aura to have a buff effect on target ally. You can only use one buff every 15-30 seconds as the Exhaust wears off once you use said buff but this would allow WHM some form of buffing in the game that they need.

Reason: WHM need buffs that assist allies, It works for DPS jobs to not have buffs for the party because they bring their DPS to the game, healers on the otherhand as you have mentioned before, may just want to heal, but by only giving WHM the options to heal or DPS, you kill their opportunity to be of use to most groups because they provide 0 utility compared to SCH and AST.

Mechanic 4: Purify, like Esuna, but it takes an enfeeble and turns it into a Buff. An ally can only be Purified once every 30-60 seconds.

Reason: Utility, give WHM something to make them special, the ability to turn certain enfeebles into buffs would be a decent one, maybe have it where only the white bar enfeebles can be purified but then the thought is, do all the enfeebles get purified or only one? Honestly I"d say all, maybe have it where where for each enfeeble Purified it adds 30 seconds to the limit of when said person can be hit with purify again. So say you get hit by bad Breath, Purify it removing all applicable abilities that can be swapped to positive effect to positive effects while leaving the negative ones on.

So let's say, Blind become Crit rate up. Heavy becomes Sprint, Slow becomes Haste, Any attribute down becomes an attribute up and nothing else comes off the to of my head but the following couldn't be purified.

Paralysis, Bind, Amnesia, Silence, basically only enfeebles which reduce your attributes in some way could be purified.

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Those are the 4 that currently come off the top of my head, but basically, with WHM you need to add more utility to them, people don't care if WHM can overheal a tank by 400% because that 300% waste is just that, waste. Remember you called WHM/SCH/AST "Support" Roles, they aren't "Healer" Roles, they Support the party. Currently AST/SCH provide Support to the party, WHM doesn't and that's what you need to reevaluate when it comes to their mechanic and overall playstyle.

I decided I would copy paste something I typed out on reddit. It seems like a good time to do so.

This is the origin of all the healer cross class skills:
WHM- 3 (Cleric Stance*, Protect*,Divine Seal/Largesse*)
AST/WHM- 1 (Shroud/Luminous Aether/Lucid Dreaming*)
SCH- 1 (Eye for an Eye*)
Other/new- 4 (Break, Swiftcast*, Surecast*, Rescue)
All- 1 (Esuna*)

*Required for current WHM functionality.

I should point out, that my other 3 personal (midcore-ish) cross class skills were Virus, Blizzard 2 , and Surecast. However, I never used any of these, nor did I have them on my hotbar. Please don't scold me for not using Virus. I know I'm bad. ;~;

From this we can see that WHMs lose 1-2 (Esuna isn't used in all instances, and only 1 healer needs Protect. Although, it can be argued that Break is like Stone 1, but we're losing all lower leveled stones too. I'm not sure where I'm going with this.) usable actions because of the roll skill system. Not only that, but we don't get to try out Rescue or the new Surecast without giving up something that was part of our toolkit.

I would also like to point out that Largesse, the new Divine Seal, is worse for WHMs. Divine seal is a 30% buff for 15 seconds. Largesse is a 20% buff for 20 seconds. Not only does Divine Seal have an overall better potency (assuming 6 gcds for Divine Seal, and 8 gcds for Largesse), but Largesse has a 30 second longer cooldown (unaffected by the lilies too!). WHMs do not need a Divine Seal for a longer duration. My personal main function of Divine Seal is to buff Medica 2 and Regen for the tank(s). I don't even need the full 15 seconds to do this. In a continuous HoT situation the idea was that every other Medica 2 and every third Regen would be buffed.

(Note: Since I made this post originally, it was pointed out that Largesse works on oGCD spells like Tetra and Assize. But I still think Divine Seal is better mostly because of the 60 second cooldown.)

Next, I calculated how many skills each healer has as of 4.0. I used this as my source.
SCH
12 base skills (excluding Summon 1 and 2)
13 job skills
3 pet skills
25 condensed skills (including Dissipation which everyone sees as pointless)

AST
28 job skills
25 condensed skills

WHM
12 base skills
13 job skills
21 condensed skills (including Repose, which is useless outside pvp)

For the total condensed skills, I simply removed skills that were replaced with a better one (Stone to Stone 2, etc). AST and SCH both lose 3 skills this way while WHM loses 4. This isn't a bad thing. The problem here is the expanding discrepancy in complexity between the healers. WHM was always the less complex healer, which is fine, but we're losing usable skills to this update. Skill bloat has been an issue in FFXIV, but WHM was not one of the classes that needed to be fixed. For example, I currently have 27 skills on my hotbar (better WHMs probably use more of their cross class skills, plus Stone 1 or something); when 4.0 hits, the maximum usable skills I'll have on my hotbar is 25 (not including Repose). I'm not even super super salty about the lilies or Plenary Indulgence right now because there's legitimate hope that those can be reworked or updated (maybe even before 4.0).

How I think we can fix it:
Give WHM Divine Seal back, and replace Largesse: My suggestion? Something from AST like Disable or Lightspeed (No, I don't think it's too similar to Presence of Mind). I'm also completely open to something new.
AoE Esuna (Esunaga?): Esunaga sounds dope. Yes, Selene has this ability already. I actually think it would be okay to copy paste it too. But because Selene is the inferior fairy, Fey Caress sees limited usage. WHM will see more use of it, and it fits into that "pure healer" archetype better.
Reraise: Cast time: 1.5 sec. Recast time: 5 min. Mana usage: at least as much as Raise. Places a 60 sec buff on the target. If the target dies within the 60 second buff, they are immediately revived to a weakened state. If any healer gets Reraise it should be the "pure healer", right?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Royardee

Post 1 of 5 (wow the character limit is bad)

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Bit late now but for future reference, you can edit your post to bypass the limit (which is why so many posts start with one line or "edit incoming" or similar...)

Info on changes to White Mage since ARR.
2.x Series Cure 3 (Buff), PoM (Buff), Med 2 (Slight Nerf), Holy (Nerf), Stoneskin II (QoL).
3.x Series Protect/shell trait (Nerf), POM (Nerf), Holy (Nerf), Stoneskin/graniteskin (Nerf), Stoneskin ii(QoL).
Changes that I couldn't find data for Stone, Stone II, Aero 2 (I want to say slight buffs).
4.0 (Changes we know so far) Note: All abilities moved to Role Actions are considered Nerfs to Whm overall.
Cure (Buff..), Cure II (Buff..), Benediction (Buff), Thin Air (Buff), Shroud of Saints (Buff..), Surecast (Buff..), Stone (QoL slight nerf), Divine seal (Nerf), Esuna (Nerf), Protect (Nerf), Fluid Aura (Nerf).
Swiftcast (No change) Eye 4 eye (No change), Cleric Stance (QoL), Aero II (QoL),
Secrets of Lily (Dead on Arrival), Divine Bension (DoA), Plenary Indulgence (DoA).
Major Nerfs to Whm Include: Holy, Protect, Stoneskin, Divine Seal, Presence of Mind, Esuna, Med 2.
Major Buffs to Whm Include: Benediction.
Buffs to the following that mean very little Include: Cure, Cure II, Cure III, Stone, Stone II, Aero II, Surecast.
Note to fellow Whm this is our "Balance" nothing but general nerfs since 2.x. If I am missing any abilities or info please let me know.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Royardee

Next, I calculated how many skills each healer has as of 4.0. I used this as my source.
SCH
12 base skills (excluding Summon 1 and 2)
13 job skills
3 pet skills
25 condensed skills (including Dissipation which everyone sees as pointless)

AST
28 job skills
25 condensed skills

WHM
12 base skills
13 job skills
21 condensed skills (including Repose, which is useless outside pvp)

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you can combine all these separate post by first posting 1k or less; then clicking edit and pasting the rest of what you had to say. Also since there is a limit to how many times you can post in a day, if you like to have long conversations with ppl you just killed 4 potential responses :P