Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

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Originally Posted by Maltothoris

Well, time to wait for the raid and just how far behind the Whm falls there if the fights don't have the design of the Whm in mind.

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I can tell you what's going to happen. WHMs issues are going to be brushed aside because they're considered "viable" as healers.
It happened in 3.4, a d I bet you it'll happen now.

This is beginning to get ridiculous. It really feels like they have something against WHM to where they refuse to give them anything good.
I mean, seriously. Taking away Stoneskin and then bringing it back as a 30s CD lily system mechanic? Jesus

I can say now after having played with Divine Benison that the skill is just... disappointing. It just doesn't feel like it does anything of any sort of significance, especially considering the hoops you have to jump through with having a lily available to even cast it. Gimme Stoneskin back. At least it worked when I needed it, when I wanted, and lasted more than 15 seconds (or until my target got hit). It may not have been much but it was far and away superior to Divine Benison.

FYI Divine Benison does get cd reduction from lilys, you can check its recast as you get them. Still don't understand why it requires them.,..not always available when I need it =/

I've been playing my Lv 70 WHM for the past day and a half, here are some of my general thoughts (haven't cleared any Ex yet) :

Thin Air is amazing, the most you can save is 12000 MP, where you chain cast 5 Holies with PoM buff.
Our Single Target dps skills MP cost are reduced. (I'm sure Stone is reduced, as it cost the same as Cure I now, where it used to be higher, I think Aero III is reduced too).

These two + the Lucid Dreaming buff makes WHM extremely MP sufficient in dungeon, I can alternate between Thin Air and Lucid Dreaming for every pack, and using Holy 4+ times for each pack, and still have 0 MP issues.

Due to the above, I am not even using Cure I anymore, Cure II is now my go to heal, and every 30 second, I will chain my Cure II into Divine Benison, basically for an extra 6k heal (15% of tank's 40k average HP for now).

I'm not sure if Sch and AST is able to do this as I do not have them leveled, but I am able to do large pulls even in base i290 gear (with pug tanks, I pull for them XD) with my abundance of oGCDs and the reduction provided by the lilies and it's pretty exhilarating.

I'll happily provide any feedback on certain aspects should anyone request them :D.

I have my WHM at level 68 and I’m enjoying it a lot so far. Lilies aren’t perfect but they are a viable addition that probably needs some tweaks. I qualify my feedback by saying I have never done a Savage raids but have cleared a number of extreme primal fights, and enjoy the more challenging content this game has to offer if I can casually access it. Obviously this feedback is entirely about what I’ve experienced with WHM from 60-68 dungeons and the Susano fight. The tank I’ve run most of this content with usually does a 2x pull so I’m not sleeping at the keyboard trying to keep him alive.

First, the rate and method that lilies come in I think is close to fine. The 50% on Cure I and 100% on Cure II feels good. I can fish for it and be inefficient otherwise, or I can play pretty normally and grab one or two. Cure II drains mana so you you don’t really want to be spamming it for any sustained period of time to build up lilies. The only thing to add here is that the 50% on Cure I is true RNG. That means you may cast Cure I 4 times, 6 times and not have a lily proc. You also might cast Cure I 3 times and it comes up every time. As a matter of game design, players will remember the streaks of not getting a proc as a far more “game breaking” issue than the positive ones. On that note, I might suggest that Square Enix use psuedo-randomness (http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Random_distribution) to eliminate such events from occurring while still having basic randomness. Then again, maybe the answer really is “if you really want that proc, cast cure II.” I find that for dungeon pulls, when you know the mobs are dying down, use Cure II to build up three lilies before the next pull so you can open with Assize. You should have that skill available for every pull now - possibly twice or thrice.

Lily mechanics do lead to interesting “fishing” attempts where sometimes I intentionally take AoE damage at the end of a pull just to free up healing room to Cure II and get a lily, or wish the tank would take more damage so I can Cure II on them. Assuming I have the three lilies at the start of a pull, I usually want to burn the lilies on Assize over any other spell. It’s if it’s still on CD for 10 more seconds and the tank is dying fast enough that I really want to use Asylum and/or Tetra to keep them alive. I know if I use those skills, the lilies go away and Assize has it’s full cooldown. So that situation you can be put in because of lilies is not good. Ultimately, as a healer the tank must be kept alive above everything but ourselves.

Divine Benison: I think this ability is great. A 15% shield that dumps all lilies seems weak but it’s actually a great skill in practice. It has a very low cooldown, and since it’s oGCD it weaves very nicely and find the animation very fun. I’ve found two (common) situations for this skill in dungeons or boss fights: either a pull is about to start and I only have 1 lily so I apply it on the tank right away knowing I won’t safely build 3 without putting the tank at risk to the initial damage rate. Or I’ve already dumped all of my 3 lilies into Assize at the start of a pull so I use it reactively to getting 1 lily on top of a heal that proc’d it. Let’s be clear, Divine Benis is every 30 seconds you get a Cure II with a bonus 15% HP shield or Cure I with a 50% chance at the 15% HP shield. This skill is so much better than Stoneskin in its usefulness in fights, and it’s reactionary mechanic. I think during constant high incoming damage, this is primarily where lilies are meant to be spent.

Mana management: Honestly I felt Heavenward was fine for a WHM. The situation has only gotten better in Stormblood. Yes, SoS moved to cross-role, but I find myself rarely having to use Lucid Dreaming. For the pulls that I find myself wanting or needing to spam Holy, PoM + Thin Air is great for that. For situations where I don’t (maybe 1 or 2) spam Holy, I’m casting Assize far more often due to its reduced cooldown and lilies so I’m getting more mana back during sustained fights. Another situation I could use Thin Air for would be if I already ran out of MP but need to cast certain spells, but that hasn’t come up yet.

If I stack these tools on top of what Plenary Indulgence will give - a 15s cooldown with a 400-600 potency heal on a tank of 0 mana cost. I could sustain a tank or two undergoing serious incoming damage for a while without becoming a mana leak. I do think the toolkit of WHM is as an unparalleled healer. With the extra healing headroom, you (or your co-healer) is free to do more DPS as most of new healing/shielding comes from oGCDs anyways. There may not be any raid utility added in this class, but the raw healing output perhaps makes it pair with the other healing jobs very nicely if they do well focusing mostly on DPS.

I’m in agreement with DreamWeaver’s post (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/325411-Consolidated-White-Mage-4.0-Feedback-Thread?p=4218798&viewfull=1#post4218798) except I don’t spam Holy every pull because I don’t feel the spell is too efficient/necessary on a mob size of three that doesn’t hit hard (I can just Aero III->(Assize)->Aero II spread -> Stone IV weaving in heals as needed. It’s more mana efficient and probably why I rarely use Lucid Dreaming.

As I've gotten more into the stormblood toolkit the consensus seems to be the same. The pure healer concept and tools given in heavensward are contradictory to the lilies mechanic. In dungeons I can DPS while using our heavensward kit to keep the tank topped off. In trials I get more use out of regen, medica, medica II and assize for AoE heals. The only scenario where using Cure and Cure II is effective is if every other skill is on CD and the tank has low enough HP. That doesn't happen often. The lily mechanic needs to change. Period.

I can effectively ignore it and continue healing in the same exact way I was doing before and be just as effective or even more effective. That's not good (or fun) game design.

Now I understand the White mage Unicorn. Beating up normal npcs is twice as hard without Fluid aura damage and just one DoT. I guess I have to find some group to finish story content.

Ok so trying to read through 200+ pages of this stuff... yeah i'm not going to do so if i'm repeating things that's why and I apologize.

First let me start off with this. I've been a white mage since 1.0 and before when it was just a Conjurer. I've seen this class get downgraded so many times it's not even funny. When it was just the class roles, we lost most of the major attack spells that we had. IE: the ancient spells of Quake and such. It really ticked us off. Then white mage came out and it was pretty decent then, with the Holy spell, and our powerful cures... however after 2.0 came out Holy became nerfed. There were even a lot of us that didn't use certain spells due to preferring different ones over the other (like using medica 2 with it's regen properties and better aoe, than Cure 3 where everyone had to stack) or even pointless ones (or semi pointles) Fluid Aura (that is my opinion only if any disagrees, meh).

Finally we got an easier spell of stoneskin which was an aoe cast, granted it had a hella long cast time but that was compensated with the quickcast. Now even that's gone. We can't cast all three aeros, nor the three different stones if we wanted to. Heck does stone 1 even put slow on a target anymore? (I haven't been in a low level dungeon recently). Honestly what has been done to Whm doesn't feel like it's helping us much. It feels like it's trying to make us obsolete.

In an attempt to upgrade my accessories, I ran the level 69 dungeon about 6 times and I used Plenary Indulgence 4 times. It wasn't even needed, I just used it to use it. I thought a 20% chance to proc couldn't be THAT bad, but to not get a single Confession stack after dozens of casts on multiple occasions.. Guess my RNG for it is consistently terrible. I am shocked that this is a level 70 ability.

On the very low chance DPS gets a Confession for example, the timer will most likely wear off before it's actually needed. The duration timers also differ from person to person. One time I got excited that 2 people actually had a stack, only for one of theirs to fall off before I was able to activate PI. The 15 second cooldown on Plenary Indulgence is nice - incredible, actually! Good luck finding an opportunity to use it though. There's nothing plenary or indulgent about it.

I have to agree with Rannie, coming from 1.0, and just recently coming back, I have noticed WHM has become something much worse than it used to be. I haven't unlocked the lilies yet but from what I've read, just give me back my damn stoneskin. Those that complain about it's usefulness on tanks, I would have to complain about why you can't buff the people that need it for mitigation, and just focus more on the tanks doing their job. Heck, if they even allowed the AoE Stoneskin during a fight I would of preferred that over what it is now.

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Originally Posted by Mogana

On the very low chance DPS gets a Confession for example, the timer will most likely wear off before it's actually needed. The duration timers also differ from person to person. One time I got excited that 2 people actually had a stack, only for one of theirs to fall off before I was able to activate PI.

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This. This really needs to eh addressed. The way other players other than Tanks get plenary stacks, and the length of the stacks, because this is ridiculous. You will never need a plenary heal right after spamming Cure II on a DPS within 30 seconds. Not sure what SE is even thinking anymore.

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Originally Posted by Rannie

We can't cast all three aeros, nor the three different stones if we wanted to. Heck does stone 1 even put slow on a target anymore? (I haven't been in a low level dungeon recently).

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Streamlining of the spells is fine. The Stone spells were just direct upgrades of each other, outside Stone with its heavy, so it makes sense to just have them automatically upgrade. Stone lost its heavy because they are trying to change CC to be very low to no damage, but we learn Stone II very early now.

Also Fluid Arua was far from useless. It was extra damage that was oGCD. Generally you would cast Aero III > Aero II > Aero+Fluid Aura.
Now, with the damage being removed, it is pretty useless.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Streamlining of the spells is fine. The Stone spells were just direct upgrades of each other, outside Stone with its heavy, so it makes sense to just have them automatically upgrade. Stone lost its heavy because they are trying to change CC to be very low to no damage, but we learn Stone II very early now.

Also Fluid Arua was far from useless. It was extra damage that was oGCD. Generally you would cast Aero III > Aero II > Aero+Fluid Aura.
Now, with the damage being removed, it is pretty useless.

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you have your opinions and i have mine *shrugs* I was just stating it. Also again to me Fluid aura was completely useless it had a knock back that pisses tanks off when people use it like the machinist's knock back with a bind that is gone as soon as you hit it. (also still very much my opinion)

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Originally Posted by Rannie

you have your opinions and i have mine *shrugs* I was just stating it. Also again to me Fluid aura was completely useless it had a knock back that pisses tanks off when people use it like the machinist's knock back with a bind that is gone as soon as you hit it. (also still very much my opinion)

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Fluid Aura has it's uses -- even without damage -- in solo content to give you breathing room, and oooocaaaasionally if a mob escapes a tank to push it back toward them. So it is not totally useless, but highly situational. Same with Repose: Helpful in some solo content, while in instances... eh, unlikely.

I'm currently a level 65 WHM and I don't have too any complaints aside from the massive elephant in the room about how counter-intuitive the lily system is as a whole. With that being said, I am looking forward to level 66 for Divine Benison as I'm one of the few it seems who believes its vastly superior than Stoneskin due to the fact it's both an oGCD and zero-MP. I don't really have much of a complaint for a skill that's essentially a light Cure that generates no overheal and minimal enmity for the caster.

As a whole, I like the kit. I basically have 0 MP issues even when I've performed 7-8 raises in the Susano HM fight and solo healing the second half of the fight on WHM. The number of non-MP reliant heals that WHM has put definitely made any sort of crazy trash pulls in any of the 60+ dungeons I've run simple as I have a set of tools to use in every pull while still maintaining high DPS via Holy and Stone IV.

So far, it's been a blast. I know Secrets of the Lily II will be silly and PI won't have any moments to shine until I get into EX's and raids. My gut tells me that AST/WHM will be what raids will be aiming for in the opening weeks.

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Originally Posted by DreamWeaver

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Originally Posted by EbonySeraphim

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Thanks for the insights!
I'm just starting to get into SB content, so I'm well behind haha, but I'm happy to read that there's some fun to be had with the new WHM kit.

Divine Benison sounds like it's pretty useful, but what about Plenary Indulgence? Is the chance to proc too low? I can't imagine it being used fairly frequently, especially if the party is range dps heavy?

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Originally Posted by mylam

Thanks for the insights!
I'm just starting to get into SB content, so I'm well behind haha, but I'm happy to read that there's some fun to be had with the new WHM kit.

Divine Benison sounds like it's pretty useful, but what about Plenary Indulgence? Is the chance to proc too low? I can't imagine it being used fairly frequently, especially if the party is range dps heavy?

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It's best to treat Plenary Inguldence as a mini-tetra. As much as it's written to be like an AoE heal, with the way the mechanics work, you're better off using it to help maintain tank health. A mini-tetra with the potential of occurring every 15 seconds is pretty powerful but it's highly unlikely you'll be using PI every 15 seconds in most scenarios, even savage raid ones. Getting a PI on your tank every 30s is still a strong ability though as it still beats Tetra in overall potency healing.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

It's best to treat Plenary Inguldence as a mini-tetra. As much as it's written to be like an AoE heal, with the way the mechanics work, you're better off using it to help maintain tank health. A mini-tetra with the potential of occurring every 15 seconds is pretty powerful but it's highly unlikely you'll be using PI every 15 seconds in most scenarios, even savage raid ones. Getting a PI on your tank every 30s is still a strong ability though as it still beats Tetra in overall potency healing.

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The problem is that it's a mini tetra that never procs whenver you need or want to and expires before you can even use it. It's badly designed.
It would have been 10 times better to have an ability called Pray that has 10 second Cooldown and that puts 1 Confession stack on your target. And then whenver you want to pop them use Plenary Indulgence.

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Originally Posted by AlphaSonic

The problem is that it's a mini tetra that never procs whenver you need or want to and expires before you can even use it. It's badly designed.
It would have been 10 times better to have an ability called Pray that has 10 second Cooldown and that puts 1 Confession stack on your target. And then whenver you want to pop them use Plenary Indulgence.

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I'd just like Confession stacks to proc off Regen ticks and casts. That way the level 70 ability synergies with the HoT kit of WHM and augments their passive healing ability.

I would like to try PI in a Savage Raid / EX Trial before I give final judgement on it but it does suffer the same flaws as Lilies. I don't even imagine a WHM getting more than 2-3 procs in a single 4-man dungeon with the ability.

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Originally Posted by AlphaSonic

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While that's not entirely true, I agree with you that it needs to be changed. I do get plenty of use out of it on trash pulls in dungeons. Especially when the tank decides to pull multiple groups and the dps can't take them down in a reasonable amount of time so you have to buckle down for big heals over a long period of time. I use it on cd in a fights like that. It does have some use in boss fights as a tank heal. I don't use it on cd, but I can still use it a couple of times. I've only ever used it once to heal more than one person and that other person didn't actually need to be healed. I just used it because I thought that would be the only time I would ever be able to heal multiple people with it lol. I would prefer that it had a chance to proc off of our aoe heals as well. Right now our gauge system and level 70 spell don't really seem to have much use in trials since they both rely on cures.

I'm in the category of thinking Divine Benison is great. I don't really compare it to Stoneskin because I use it very differently than Stoneskin. Divine Benison I weave in on cd on the tank. The one issue I have with it is that it will take all your lilies but doesn't improve with extra ones.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

I'd just like Confession stacks to proc off Regen ticks and casts. That way the level 70 ability synergies with the HoT kit of WHM and augments their passive healing ability.

I would like to try PI in a Savage Raid / EX Trial before I give final judgement on it but it does suffer the same flaws as Lilies. I don't even imagine a WHM getting more than 2-3 procs in a single 4-man dungeon with the ability.

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I'm not there yet either, but that's pretty much my expectation (and hope) as well. Even a 5% chance on regen tick gives a ~30% chance of getting at least one (likely only one) per regen, or a 65% chance over the course of a minute. Considering it only grants if you're in combat and don't 100% overheal like lilies (any 70s please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I recall that from our other FC WHM), a bigger number like 10% isn't too scary. Around 50% per regen *if* none of them overheal. I feel it'd fill the supplemental-quick-boost-role a lot better, greatly boost its chance to actually stack to 2 or 3 on a target you expect to be taking damage, and ultimately would give you a reasonable chance to pop it once a minute which may allow you to save tetra for a bigger oopsie on another player that you don't have a failsafe for. It'd also help recuperate the time spent reapplying regens to tanks in two-tank scenarios by virtue of doubling chances at a stack, roughly.

Not to mention, y'know, HoT synergy.

As for Benison, I too am treating it like a free-ish tank heal every 30s or so, and it works alright as that. Doesn't feel good to see multiplie lilies go into it as the CD is short as it is, but not the end of the world. I've found it rather clunky to use when I'm actively trying to have a shield ready. It feels pretty weak right now and seems to disintegrate faster than stoneskin did....but that's probably just gear and leveling dungeons messing with my perception compared to running Exs at 60. Just having to train myself to remember to hit it at the moment. I definitely miss stoneskin giving me the option to babysit someone I feel can benefit from it, though. Rather than pre-shield them, gotta react to targeted actions quickly, and the necessity of a lily makes it not always practical to do so compared to adlo-reactions. I experienced this during an A-rank that many of us were 66-68 for, getting one shot by some of its targeted actions unless I had a benison available, but I understand that's not going to be a typical combat experience once we're 70.

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Originally Posted by Erakir

As for Benison, I too am treating it like a free-ish tank heal every 30s or so. I've found it rather clunky to use when I'm actively trying to have a shield ready. It feels pretty weak right now and seems to disintegrate faster than stoneskin did....but that's probably just gear and leveling dungeons messing with my perception compared to running Exs at 60. Just having to train myself to remember to hit it at the moment.

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The players in my Discord that are leveling tanks have noted that Defense ratings seem to get much higher than they have been in the past. I think the i273 tank body is +40 Def/MDef higher than the i270 body. If that trend remains true for the rest of SB there will be some pretty big defense gaps between a low ilvl and high ilvl tank and thus will need a lot more work to keep up with than before. Even the MCH I'm with mentioned a +30 Def increase going from i270 to i273.

I'd keep an eye on that for your own gear as well as you level and just see if your gear pieces take large leaps like that too as you get higher and higher.

Im not 70 right now, but I already got my opinions on White Mage, so here is my personal feedback on White Mage.

Lilies

For me, Lilies only have one use and it's giving someone a shield. The recast reduction on Assize and other skills are quite meaningless, as all lilies will be removed when using one of those skills. I rarely have 3 Lilies to benefit from the recast buff at all.

1. Assize, Asylum, Tetragrammation and Divine Bension will consume 1 Lily, so those skills can be used more frequently. Right now I don't have any use of the reduced cast time.

2. Lilies will also affect how fast Benediction can be used again, but the use of Benediction will consume all Lilies.

Divine Bension

To make use of Lilies I would prefer scaling the shield based on the current stacked Lilies. So one of the following would help a lot

1. Increase the duration based on Lilies, e. g. 1 Lily: 15 seconds / 2 Lilies 30 seconds / 3 Lilies 45 seconds.

2. Increase the strength based on Lilies, e. g. 1 Lily: 10 % of HP / 2 Lilies: 20% of HP / 3 Lilies: 30% of HP

This way, bringing a White Mage to a Raid Group means higher single target damage mitigation and less stress on healers. Personally, I prefer method 2.

Plenary Indulgence

Plenary Indulgence is too random in my opinion. It might be an instant cast with a recast time of just 15 seconds, but with all the stuff it requires to be efficient it's just too random. We need to cure or cure II people to give them confession stacks and they need to be below 100% of their health to actually get it in the first place. If they don't get hit for another 30 seconds, they lose their stacks, because we can’t give them new stacks, so they won't get any healing from Plenary Undulgence at all. The only nice thing about Plenary Indulgence is the range and the recast time, and that the main tank is kinda ensured to get a free massive heal. But in the end Plenary Indulgence result in overhealing and underhealing at the same time.

To adress that I would want Plenary Indulgence to become something like that:


1. Add a healing potency for zero confession stacks. This will heal the whole group everytime and will help handling Mana. Like a potency of 200.


2. To make Plenary Indulgence relevant I would increase the recast time to 30 seconds and remove the duration of confession stacks entirely.


3. Add an AOE shield to Plenary Indulgence, when it is used with Three Lilies. This way we have to actually manage our Lilies which isn’t the case right now.


4. Change Secret of the Lily to "Grants a 20% chance that Assize and Asylum recast time is reduced by 5 seconds upon healing HP with cure or cure II" OR "Assize and Asylum recast time is reduced by 5 seconds upon critical healing HP with cure or cure II" - the Trait is random based on random, so we don’t really benefit from it.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

The players in my Discord that are leveling tanks have noted that Defense ratings seem to get much higher than they have been in the past. I think the i273 tank body is +40 Def/MDef higher than the i270 body. If that trend remains true for the rest of SB there will be some pretty big defense gaps between a low ilvl and high ilvl tank and thus will need a lot more work to keep up with than before. Even the MCH I'm with mentioned a +30 Def increase going from i270 to i273.

I'd keep an eye on that for your own gear as well as you level and just see if your gear pieces take large leaps like that too as you get higher and higher.

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Haha, I was thinking of editing that in, myself, as I most certainly have noticed huge defense jumps in just this leveling gear. I'm seeing jumps of 40Def, up to 90 MDef as well, though that might have been a 260 -> 273 or 279. I fully expect things that were hitting me for 25k at 65 to scale down considerably in 290 gear or so.

And as such, I expect shields in 70 dungeons will last a little longer. Benison's working exactly as I expected it to so far, which isn't particularly bad. Just not a job you can call on for on-demand shielding as much compared to the past, even if it was a measly amount on non-tanks at 10%. Cohealer's just gonna have to adapt to that~ If anything, it's even more longevity onto our kit, which is pretty massive as it is even if you're unable to take great advantage of thin air (A mob fluid aura'd me in a dungeon once as I popped thin air, 6s bind and all. I was so mad, heh).

Seriously seeing my MP stay pretty much constant while max DPSing is such a new feeling.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

I'd just like Confession stacks to proc off Regen ticks and casts. That way the level 70 ability synergies with the HoT kit of WHM and augments their passive healing ability.

I would like to try PI in a Savage Raid / EX Trial before I give final judgement on it but it does suffer the same flaws as Lilies. I don't even imagine a WHM getting more than 2-3 procs in a single 4-man dungeon with the ability.

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That would definitely make more sense, and would distinguish them from lillies. Right now they all proc from the same thing, only at different rates.

Divine Benison has become somewhat useful in 70 DR EX. Plenary is still crazy awkward at best. Most of my lilies go to Assize.

WHM was always the HoT healer. Any yet they made the two new mechanics have nothing to do with HoTs.

Alright, so I just finished the Main Storyline, fought the last boss...

I'll go over my thoughts on everything.

WHM on a whole is...well, i'm having mixed feelings. That is to say it's not Bad. again, i've said that.

The loss of stoneskin hurts still. especially with a lot of the massive raid wide damage going out. you need a Shielder and a full time Healer for the Primal fights. Yes, they have plenty of mechanics and one mess up can mean the end of the chance to not wipe. I'll impose greatly: a single death is really bad at this time. I've seen this from Susano'o to The final boss (spoilers, not saying :P ). I feel...bloody lacking at times. MP consumption is out the rear for these fights and even with Thin Air and Lucid Dreaming, and Assize...it never does seem like enough. This could be because of the raises that had to be done, which goes back to mechanic failures.

I want to address, more than anything: Planery Indulgence and Confession stacks. while it's a good AOE heal...i got...all of like...3 stacks total in the last boss, and that is with using Cure 1/2 like they're bloody water, popping every and all CDs to spend those lilies...

but...3 stacks, in an entire raid is Bad. yes, it's an emergency and nice heal, but...if you can't get the procs to use it, you're not getting anywhere. I used it to no end in the Level 70 MSQ dungeon. it came in handy, but that was a MUCH longer run with a lot more chances to get Confession stacks.

Solution: either up the rate in which confession stacks are given OR (and my personal thoughts on the matter) make them stack on the WHM, not the party to be a sudden snap AOE heal. Lilies and CDR...bleh, no. if SE is dead set on making WHM pump out heal numbers to high bloody heaven..then move the confession stacks and their mechanics.

This is minor complaint but... Stone IV is really ugly and it's reminiscent of something I've seen before...

http://i.imgur.com/1azjnQz.png

Some thoughts after hitting 70 and getting a chance to try out all the max level content the game has to offer...

It feels very same old, same old. Yes, Thin Air, Assize buffs and Lucid Dreaming being a better Shroud gives you utterly absurd longevity in most cases, but I generally feel that I'm playing the same way as I did at Lvl. 60. I also ended up liking Divine Benison more than I expected. While I wouldn't call it outright better than Stoneskin, it does have its charms. My only real annoyance with it is that it requires at least a Lily, which gets on my nerves when I'm not allowed to Assize because a buster is on the way. Otherwise, overkill healing. I feel that I could solo heal the current Extremes with little issue once I'm more comfortable with the fights. :p

There are a few bads, though. Plenary Indulgence and Confessions are so unreliable that I don't ever consider them in my planning. The few times I do get a Confession on the tanks, I just use it as a mini-Tetra to keep DPSing a bit longer. If I'm lucky, I might get to top off a DPS for "free" after a Cure II bomb. But otherwise, I don't ever rely on it, and I feel that it's quite a shame that I feel that way about one of our new toys.

In addition, precasting Cure/Cure II as a White Mage is a nightmare. Even if you don't overheal, you don't seem to generate Lilies if you cause the Cure/Cure II to land right after a damage spike. While Lilies aren't what I'd call exciting, it feels clunky to not get one when you're arguably playing properly by thinking ahead and precasting. Feels like this is something that needs to be fixed. :/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raminax

In addition, precasting Cure/Cure II as a White Mage is a nightmare. Even if you don't overheal, you don't seem to generate Lilies if you cause the Cure/Cure II to land right after a damage spike. While Lilies aren't what I'd call exciting, it feels clunky to not get one when you're arguably playing properly by thinking ahead and precasting. Feels like this is something that needs to be fixed. :/

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I want to follow this up and say I noticed this too, and I'm glad I'm not the only one. It's an absolute travesty considering how important pre-casting is in raids for squeezing out the most healing GCDs you can in the roughest parts of a fight. It's made me annoyed more than once when my plan is to Cure 2 -> Benison someone.

Just as I feared solo content for fighting is boring and repetitive. No sane person wanted another stone spell why are we always ignored?

Gaining lilies is anoying im purposely not putting on Regen and over curing just to get some in the level 50-60 content. Which doesn't bode well for higher level content where MP is gonna be much needed.

Been seriously considering dropping WHM and not picking up another healer because not only are we not listened to but Yoshi P himself said our concerns were unfounded and clearly didn't pay attention to any of them but we were supposed to calm down and find out well thanks for the middle finger Yoshi P.

I dozed off doing DR EX as WHM today.

Reporting in after hitting 70. Initial thoughts.

I'm noticing lilies accumulate often enough with the higher outgoing damage of dungeons and primals, but this could change with better gear - meaning MedII and Regen will replace a bulk of the Curing. I still kinda wish lilies had a passive effect, especially when you have all 3 lilies and every ability they affect is on CD.

My major sticking point with WHM is the Confession system. I like the idea behind Plenary a lot, but the duration on Confessions needs to be much longer/preferably removed, or the proc chance needs to be much higher. I've gone long periods without getting any Confessions even when chain casting Cure/Cure II, or I get 3 stacks in 3 Cures, not use Plenary because the tank is topped off, and if there are no more immediate spikes of damage, they will often fall off by the time I want them.

I would also love to see Cure III being able to apply Confession even with a lower proc chance - giving Plenary a bit of aoe potential without having to single target Cure everyone.

Edit: Additionally, tracking multiple Confession stacks on different people is annoying because we are unable to see the duration with the party interface. And though I haven't personally ran into this yet, double WHM in DF apparently can't differentiate their own Confession stacks without having to target the individual manually.

PS: Thin Air is great. Bension is pretty good with its 30s CD though needing a lily is a bit hard to plan for (i.e. topping up a tank before a buster using Tetra, thereby spending all lilies, and oops no more Bension).

Confession stacks need a chance to proc on every single heal we have. Especially medica I and II.

Problem Solved.

OK so i reached lvl 70 as many others here. I try to add some confession stacks to myself. no luck, i go out in the field and get hit by some enemies and heal myself, no confession stacks. I was so afraid by reading the info on plenary indulgence that you wouldn't be able to put stacks on yourself. but can you really not?? So this spell can literally not be used in solo play? are you serious?

like if this is the case and i'm not mistaken. This is utterly ridiculous. I am willing to forgive everything else about whm, but not this... i literally can't cast this spell on my own, like how is that ok?? I've officially lost my cool about whm, this is ridiculous. Change it now square enix. if there is but one thing you do, allow us to put confession stacks on ourselves.

and plz someone tell me if i'm mistaken...

So, now that ive played on 70 for a few days too, ill also give a bit of feedback.

WHM plays pretty nice on 70, but i feel like the lilys still need a bit of polishing, as well as the infamous plenary indulgence plus confession.
The biggest issue atm is the enormous amount of RNG in the new abilities. We have 3(CI) or 4(CII) different outcomes that can happen if we cast a cure spell ... thats not neccessarily bad, but we lack control over our own system.

Possible Changes:

Replace the 68 trait with a skill that lets us fetch a lily every 15 or 20 seconds. (I dont like the trait anyway, just more RNG ... )

Replace Divine Bension with an ability that changes based on our current lilys.
Somewhat like:

1 lily: Cuts off 2 seconds of the cast time of the next spell you use, then puts the skill on a 10 sec. CD
2 lilys: The next single target Spell will shield the target (For a amount based on the spell used, because Benediction), then the skill goes on a 20 to 30 second CD
3 lilys: The next single target heal will instantly stack 3 confessions on the target, or the next aoe heal will stack 1 confession on every person hit, then the skill goes on a 30 to 40 second CD

The second skill just being a random idea, i would really wish for a lily fetching spell. Hope will die, but at least it dies last.