White-mage is doomed - and why

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Originally Posted by Sunako

Well it seems like astro is more likely overpowered then.

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Astro has been overpowered for quite sometime now. in-fact they are poster girl/boy of savage raiding do to fact that there buffs are way too good. imagine having a buff that directly buffs someone's damage directly every fight have the highest mp recovery this job just begging to be nerfed. or or maybe should just make white mage better like everyone else really wants.

They designed WHM to be the easiest healer to play and yet made it the worst in every possible way.
It has the most expensive spells of all the healers but has the worst MP economy of them all with the nerf to Thin Air
It has the lowest damage of all the healers due to a combination from lacking Raid Utility and the fact that its more reliant on using its GCDs to heal due to lacking many oGCD healing tools.
Even just leveling the job feels like a slog due to how few good oGCD you get at early stages of the game that by the time you even reach anything substantial, you would've had it unlocked at a much lower level on SCH or AST or at least something that could supplement until you got their equivalent skill.

You want WHM to remain relevant? Not even meta but simply relevant to the game at all from start to finish, here's some suggestions.

Introduce some low level versions of our current toolkit as well as grant them some QoL improvements for other skills.
Fluid Aura could easily be changed to be a low level version of Aqua Veil so that it reduces the damage that target takes by 10% and upgrades to 15% later on.
Stoneskin could be a weaker Divine Benison.
Largesse (Or Divine Veil, whichever name you prefer IDC) could be low level Temperance.
Put Tetra on the Charge system and give it 2 charges.
Low the level requirement on Afflatus Rapture from 76 down to 62/64 to make up for the fact that there isn't a skill unlock at that level (I forget the exact level but that gap is there).
These changes would not only make WHM more tolerable to level from the ground up but would also give WHM at least 1 extra oGCD heal with the 2nd charge of Tetra that it wouldn't be in such a terrible place.

On the note of extra oGCD Heals, dramatically change Lilybell. As it stands, you either have a slightly more potent PI or a worse Earthly Star and really no in between. I'm honestly not sure how to fix this dumpster fire of a skill without just changing it entirely so I'll let others think of something.

To address their MP economy, there's a few ways to do it. For starters, you could not nerf Thin Air. Problem solved. But if SE would rather nerf Thin Air just to come to the realization that they done goofed, then let them come to that reality and look forward to Assize restoring 10% MP and Divine Benison getting a 5% MP restore effect added just to keep WHM on life support for 2 more years because that's so much easier to do than admit they were wrong. (You'd have thought they'd learned that lesson with removing ED from SCH but apparently not).

Finally, to deal with the fact that WHM's damage is crap, either give them raid utility or give them some extra damage. Faith, Brave, Shell, Protect, etc. are all Iconic WHM abilities that could be utilized to give them some much needed utility but since SE has deemed their damage as their utility then they better give WHM some damage then. Buff Misery in some way, either a potency increase or an easier/faster way to offer Blood to the Blood God Lily so that Misery is available more frequently and isn't a DPS loss. Or add a Cleric Stance type buff to WHM so they can get that extra damage in somehow. Also, return Aero 3.

Just these changes alone would keep WHM in a healthy spot going forward without it overshadowing any of the other healers and remain an easy job to just pick up and work with from scratch.

I mean easy way to fix the job would be too make lily spells ogcds utilizing the new weave possibilities and with that blood lily is always a massive dmg gain and not a punish. Make lilybell give you a shield for every remaining stack unused with a duration of 30 seconds (maybe full or half potency of the heal) and reduce its cooldown to 2 minutes. Give assize to two charges so you are not always forced to use it on cooldown and hold it for some aoe situations. And change thin air back to 10 seconds free mana but 2 charges so you are have options when you wanna use it.

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Originally Posted by Mortex

I mean easy way to fix the job would be too make lily spells ogcds utilizing the new weave possibilities and with that blood lily is always a massive dmg gain and not a punish. Make lilybell give you a shield for every remaining stack unused with a duration of 30 seconds (maybe full or half potency of the heal) and reduce its cooldown to 2 minutes. Give assize to two charges so you are not always forced to use it on cooldown and hold it for some aoe situations. And change thin air back to 10 seconds free mana but 2 charges so you are have options when you wanna use it.

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I do not think they can fix lilies whole idea of taking damage to heal is really bad

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Originally Posted by VictoriaLuv

I do not think they can fix lilies whole idea of taking damage to heal is really bad

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Lilybell is a really bad ability in its current form. Taking damage as a healer in order to use a healing skill is terrible conceptually and in practice, it just doesn't work very well outside of situations that force you to take damage anyway making it too niche to warrant such a ridiculous CD of 3 minutes. Having said that, the idea to turn any remaining charges on Lilybell into shielding instead of healing does resolve the issue of the ability being just an overheal since if Lilybell goes its full duration without the WHM having taken any damage, chances are the party is in pretty good shape and the extra heal is just wasted, so I'll support that idea.

Not so much Assize being on the charge system though. It would give WHM more sustain and damage, 2 of the main issues facing WHM going into EW, but it still wouldn't be used for healing purposes since the sustain and damage far outweigh that of the need to heal with it. The charge system would realistically only give 1, maybe 2 extra uses of the skill, depending on long phase transitions that would allow for more down time to charge the skill but those are often once a fight type deals so it would be a minor benefit that ultimately misses the mark.

Making the Lily system into oGCDs would be hit or miss. It would grant WHM more oGCDs for them to utilize, thus allowing them more time to DPS with Glare but would probably result in Misery being too much of a DPS gain overall (unless heavily nerfed down to Energy Drain levels of potency) making it like SAM in that, while the other jobs have utility, it just isn't enough to keep up and while it would be lovely to see WHM in the healer meta for once, I can't really support anything that is unbalanced. A somewhat better approach would be to simply make the Lily System be purely DPS neutral by increasing the potency of Misery so that the damage isn't a problem and WHM can choose to heal or damage without having to worry about the end result. Either that or add more Lily Abilities to make it easier/quicker to build up toward Misery sooner and doing essentially the same thing but we can't have that because button bloat (even if the other healers have a greater issue with Button Bloat with more skills to their name than WHM does).

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

[Turning Lily spells into oGCDs] would grant WHM more oGCDs for them to utilize, thus allowing them more time to DPS with Glare but would probably result in Misery being too much of a DPS gain overall (unless heavily nerfed down to Energy Drain levels of potency) making it like SAM in that, while the other jobs have utility, it just isn't enough to keep up and while it would be lovely to see WHM in the healer meta for once, I can't really support anything that is unbalanced.

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That's the thing when anyone suggests turning Lily spells into oGCDs. You can't help but think, "And that somehow wouldn't just be balanced for, returning their combined offensive and curative ppm to exactly what is was -- except with less agency or mobility?"

I get not wanting to upset balance, but as a disgruntled former WHM main, I'm also thinking, oooooo better watch out! WHM might have something strong and useful about it and that's definitely not allowed. Better have zero utility, no interesting mechanics, more expensive GCD heals, fewer oGCD heals, and no AOE shielding capability unlike all three other healers, who also all three have AOE regens because lol screw WHM.

I dislike how the developers' vision of making absolutely certain that WHM is the weakest, least flexible, most hampered by dumb restrictions healer, outclassed in basically every single way by the others save Cure 3 spam overhealing (and hello Thin Air nerfs to that!) has never, ever changed over the years. Why not make Misery a massive damage gain? It would at least allow WHM to be remarkably good at something this game's combat system cares about.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

I get not wanting to upset balance, but as a disgruntled former WHM main, I'm also thinking, oooooo better watch out! WHM might have something strong and useful about it and that's definitely not allowed. Better have zero utility, no interesting mechanics, more expensive GCD heals, fewer oGCD heals, and no AOE shielding capability unlike all three other healers, who also all three have AOE regens because lol screw WHM.

I dislike how the developers' vision of making absolutely certain that WHM is the weakest, least flexible, most hampered by dumb restrictions healer, outclassed in basically every single way by the others save Cure 3 spam overhealing (and hello Thin Air nerfs to that!) has never, ever changed over the years. Why not make Misery a massive damage gain? It would at least allow WHM to be remarkably good at something this game's combat system cares about.

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I'm not happy by the changes either and I'm prepared to quit healing entirely to go MNK in EW if nothing is done but if changes do occur I, at least, want it to be balanced.
Look at how close Healers are in ShB. It's nearly perfect but WHM needs a slight buff. If Misery was DPS neutral right now, or even just slightly less of a DPS loss, that might've been enough but EW is literally going so far backwards in regards to WHM that it's absolutely baffling and now needs a hell of a lot more help just to make it relevant, let alone meta but I don't believe making the Lily System into oGCD heals with Misery as a DPS gain will actually accomplish that; It'll just end up like Assize where the WHM is looking to burn lilies as quickly as possible for a nice DPS increase and that's it. Would WHM be borderline OP in terms of healer damage? Yes but its not going to solve the issues facing WHM right now, namely its sustain which is looking to be almost on par with its HWs version, just with a few free spells sprinkled in periodically and anyone that's played WHM in HW would like to avoid that at all cost, myself included.

I'm more jaded than that; I'm so beyond done with WHM literally always "lagging a little behind" because this game's developers would rather sink Japan into the sea than ever, ever, ever give White Mage anything interesting to bring to the table, ever. So screw it, why not just do bonkers amounts of damage.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

I'm more jaded than that; I'm so beyond done with WHM literally always "lagging a little behind" because this game's developers would rather sink Japan into the sea than ever, ever, ever give White Mage anything interesting to bring to the table, ever. So screw it, why not just do bonkers amounts of damage.

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To be precise, WHM did bring something new to the table for a little while... well, mostly just one raid. It's just that BLM did BLM scaling things thereafter and many an other job got buffed and just did scaling things that obviously will outpace the offensive scaling of any healer's own throughput, increasing SCH's and AST's rDPS value relative to WHM... all while Misery's little potency bonus when to waste from lack of cleave opportunities for Afflatus Misery.