Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

I'd like it if Benison worked with no lilies but got powered up if you had them, in a way which felt satisfying and coherent. I'd also like it if there was a rank1 version at a lower level which upgrades at 66 to fully unlock this extra lily-based functionality, killing two birds (our complete lack of any kind of shielding for pre-SB content) with one stone and making levelling feel more like progress. So many of our abilities work against one another now; I'd love to have more control.

Trying to "fix" PI by giving out more confessions isn't the answer. PI is just clunky and awkward as designed. It'll still be clunky even if you get confessions more than never, because it'll still be effectively RNG as to who it actually heals when you use it (aside from the tank). It'll still require looking at buff bars. It'll still be a thing where if a DPS has a confession (because you healed them), you no longer need to use PI on them.

If Confessions are to exist at all (and I'm not sure they should), they need to go on the WHM and not the party. Let them stack up in a counter, then casting PI burns the counter and heals however many people it can based on how many counters you have. That'd solve the UI problem, the "it's ridiculously hard to get these on anyone except the tank" problem, and the "they fall off before you need them" problem all in a single stroke.

Tossing out buffs based on RNG and then trying to use them to heal is just bad design.

alright, got my main WHM to 70 now (took my time doing everything instead of rushing) and now i would like to talk about my thoughts

let me begin with this: the lily system is completely flawed from its core!
it relies on cure 1 and 2 only, is RNG based one one of them, and does not work at all if no actual healing is done, for example if a HoT tick filled the target a split-second before the cure cast finishes, or if nobody took dmg due to shielding. this makes the system absolutely unreliable and frustrating!

when i first saw SE reviel the lily system, it pretty much broke my hearth. it literally took me one full day to calm down from this rage within me towards the person who designed this. from the very beginning, it looked like a bar tagged on for the sole reason of beeing tagged on. and after trying it out, this is exactly what it is.


i thought about how the lily system could be reworked to actually be useful and become a core mechanic to work around. so here are my ideas:

1) instead of the lily trait at lvl 52, add a new skill at this lvl.
"blessing of the lily"
spell, 2 sec cast time, 2.5 sec recast time (GCD)
grants one lily and restores 2% of total MP
can only be used infight

2) add a passive buff to the lilies
while you have lilies, each one reduces (re)cast time and mp cost by 2%

3) change how lilies get used and make them more useful
when using any ability (OGCD), one lily gets consumed (if available) for 10% cd reduction

4) make our lvl 70 skill "plenary indulgence" use the lilies
this AoE heal ability can only be executed while having at least one lily. all lilies get consumed on execution. healing power is based on number of lilies (200 potency for 1, 400 potency for 2, 600 potency for 3). 90 sec cd (cd reduction does apply). 30y range.


that's the gist of it. it would make the lilies an integral and planable part of the WHM arsenal that increases our healing and dps abilities slightly due to the increases spell speed and decreased ability cooldowns. WHM would always strive to have three lilies, but as they get consumed from OGCD skills you have to give up some GCDs to regain them. it also adds a technical layer to our lvl 70 skill which then offers massive AoE healing at the expense of all lilies, making it a double edged sword. and this all keeps the "pure healer" SE wants WHM to be intact.

of course, all numbers here are just thoughts i think could roughly fit. balancing this correctly is another topic.


if there will not be a lilly rework, then this is the absolute minimum changes i would like to see to the system for it to become somewhat reliable:
1) grant a lily from cure 3 (100%)
2) remove the restriction to actually heal HP for a lily to be generated
3) remove the restriction to have lilies for divine benison
4) increase the chance to create confession stacks to be 50/100/100% on cure 1/2/3 respectively. cure 3 grants everybody hit a confession.
5) for the trait "Secret of the Lily II", increase the chance to 100%

this is the absolute minimum i want to see changed! but i would highly prefer a rework as written above!


WHM has been my main since i began playing the game about 3 years ago, i loved the job to death ever since. but now WHM has not lost so much that it just is not enjoyable anymore, especially with the lily system in place. this whole system is just way too random and inconsistant and, aside from thin air, all of SB WHM feels really lackluster.

plase SE do something about this! i have high hopes for you to fix this mess until 4.1 :)

As it stands, I hate hate HATE Divine Benison. TRASH. Waste of an ability with an already low ability count. I'd rather have stone skin back.
For a class that made such a focus on using the other elements during the class quests, SE sure does enjoy stripping away the abilities from other elements in favor of this "Pure healing" nonsense.

I guess now is the time to switch to a new healer.

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Originally Posted by Lunari4

As it stands, I hate hate HATE Divine Benison. TRASH. Waste of an ability with an already low ability count. I'd rather have stone skin back.
For a class that made such a focus on using the other elements during the class quests, SE sure does enjoy stripping away the abilities from other elements in favor of this "Pure healing" nonsense.

I guess now is the time to switch to a new healer.

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My bet is on Aero and Stone being replaced in 5.0 if Geomancer gets implemented. Hopefullly see the end of classes tied to any of the jobs.

Just as a quick fyi. Divine Benison is a water ability, which is nice. We only had like Fluid Aura before it, maybe Esuna too.

With the new MP refresh options, DPS is not restricting. I'm not choked for MP. I disagree with Divine Benison being trash and needing Stoneskin again. It's instant so no long cast time. Always know you can go Cure II > DB without a second thought. It blocks 15% of HP instead of 10% so it is better at mitigating damage. There is more uptime with it than Stoneskin.

Lillies is underwhelming. You cannot control it and no strategy involved.

Plenary Indulgence is unneeded. The random Confession stacks aren't reliable to be able to predict any upcoming heals needed. The proc rate is just too low. When Confession hits, the target is topped off so there is no reason for the extra healing.

WHM feels a lot stronger and effective on doing big numbers in heals and burst damage. The added mechanics in Confession/Plenary Indulgence and Lillies are underwhelming. The combat overhaul works in its favor. RNG needs to be taken out of the procs for Lillies and Confession stacks.

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Originally Posted by Shakugan

With the new MP refresh options, DPS is not restricting. I'm not choked for MP. I disagree with Divine Benison being trash and needing Stoneskin again. It's instant so no long cast time. Always know you can go Cure II > DB without a second thought. It blocks 15% of HP instead of 10% so it is better at mitigating damage. There is more uptime with it than Stoneskin.

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Originally WHM had 18% stoneskin. 10% was the nerf version. Anyways, Benison looks decent on paper: oGCD, instant barrier, and 15% is not bad for that.

But then you add RNG gating... ...you can force it with cure II, but then you spend a GCD with cast time, probably overhealing, and suddenly it's not looking so great...

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Originally Posted by Shakugan

I disagree with Divine Benison being trash and needing Stoneskin again. It's instant so no long cast time. Always know you can go Cure II > DB without a second thought.

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If you are having to Cure II to use Benison you just gave it a cast time.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Originally WHM had 18% stoneskin. 10% was the nerf version. Anyways, Benison looks decent on paper: oGCD, instant barrier, and 15% is not bad for that.

But then you add RNG gating... ...you can force it with cure II, but then you spend a GCD with cast time, probably overhealing, and suddenly it's not looking so great...

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This can be true for casual dungeons more or less but when we're talking about end-game hardcore content, like the extreme primals for the moment, it starts to have a lot more uptime with more common use of Cure in them. I would say the same for raids.

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Originally Posted by Niroken

If you are having to Cure II to use Benison you just gave it a cast time.

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Considering that's not the only way to get Lillies. Sure, it is the only sure way every time, but see above.

I think the biggest issue with lillies is that there's no strategy involved. Like really, who cares how many you have. You aren't going to cure2 just for an extra lilly, and you aren't going to hold back on using your ogc cooldowns. It's pointless. You could remove it entirely from your HUD and just go by whether or not benison is available.
PI will just need fixing. How this passed testing is beyond me. I assume the original concept procced too often and was op so they nerfed it overlooking the fact that it's the kind of skill you can't really nerf well (I mean they keep describing it like an aoe heal so it must've been at some point right?). If you nerf it you either reduce procs rendering it unreliable and useless even with high potency. If you nerf the potency but keep the high proc then it's not a significant enough heal to be worth it. It's possible there is no viable middle ground here and they'll need to go back to the drawing boards.

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Originally Posted by Shakugan

but when we're talking about end-game hardcore content, like the extreme primals for the moment, it starts to have a lot more uptime with more common use of Cure in them. I would say the same for raids.

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The problem is still though... it's not reliable. It might be up for those tank busters. It might not be. It probably won't be if you just got out of an AoE burst phase. (Unless you only use medica/C3... but that goes back to the argument about playing suboptimally to cater to lilies).

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Originally Posted by Shakugan

This can be true for casual dungeons more or less but when we're talking about end-game hardcore content, like the extreme primals for the moment, it starts to have a lot more uptime with more common use of Cure in them. I would say the same for raids.



Considering that's not the only way to get Lillies. Sure, it is the only sure way every time, but see above.

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Having to cast Cure or Cure II is the only way to get lilies... And even then, it's true that you will get more lilies in that type of content, but you will probably spend them in something that you didn't want to since basically you don't have control on which abilities you spend lilies.

Divine Benison...Not currently useful as it could be. Removing all lilies with the use of Tetragrammaton and Assize is an interesting touch. Not sure if I like it, but it's forced me to be more conscious of what skills I'm using + alter my 3.0 healing style. Amount of time involved in the cooldown of DB is enough for me to rebuild 3 lilies. Frustrating to get a shield worth only 15% of the target's HP regardless of if you have 1 lily or 3. Frustrating to rebuild 3 lilies in the time DB is on cd only to burn them for weak shield. Make more skills require lilies, make the cost of DB 1 lily, OR increase the potency of the shield per lily on your vine.

I, personally, would be content for a reduced chance of lily (not to 20% which is borderline useless...looking at you, PI) if it meant my shield for each successive lily grown doubled the potency of the shield that came before it, (1 lily = 15%, 2 lily = 30%, 3 lily = 60%) and ultimately making it a move worth working for.

Now for my favorite Plenary Indulgence

Are you kidding? 20% chance for a single confession stack is bad enough, but the fact you expect us to cure/cure ii spam on literally any member of our party we want to be affected is awful. Can't speak for other WHMs but the main tank gets the majority of my solo cures, and most of the time the main tank isn't stacked with the rest of the group by x amount of distance -- if it's out of PI's aoe heal range, it's useless. I don't see myself using this skill as it is for any sort of group heal...I have cure 3 or medica/medica 2/assize for that.

tl;dr this is basically just a free, no-cast cure I'm using on the MT of my group at this time and I'm mad I went from 60-70 and got a grand total of one (1) useful skill. delete and return holy to it's original potency (yes I'm serious)

(sorry for double-post; 1000 char limit screwed me over)

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Originally Posted by Aynur_Rajani

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PI is not an AoE centered around the person with the confession. PI only heals people with confession stacks.

One more thing I've just noticed:

There seems to be a bug with Cure/Cure II and Lilies. Even if I use Cure II (100% Lily chance on HP healed) on the MT, if the healing lands too soon after the tank takes damage, I don't get a Lily. Pre-casting a burst heal to immediately restore the tank's HP after a tank buster is commonplace, but at the moment if you're too good at it, you end up losing Lily gains. Considering the entire system is already a disaster, I suppose it hardly matters. But it's just one more way that the Lily system is broken.

It's either that, or it doesn't work if the target has a shield active at the time of the heal.

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Originally Posted by NocturniaUzuki

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Yes, this has been brought up earlier in the thread (or maybe a different one), but to confirm your suspicions - pre-healing does not generate a lily right now. It's as if the client only tells the server "Hey see if you can give that WHM a lily" if the client sees the tank is not at 100%.

Similarly, too late a heal that's actually overheal but doesn't appear to be when your client-side cast finishes can still give a lily, I believe. Pre-healing is incredibly commonplace and a sign of good play, though. It absolutely sucks that you're punished for it. In particular, sometimes I want to heal + Benison immediately after, similar to following up a cure with a tetra, and I can't do that at 0 lilies like this unless I delay my heal significantly - helping negate the point of that instant-shield-post-buster to begin with. While one could say "You should have the lily ready already/shield in advance (I try my best to)" it doesn't change the flaw of a no-overheal cure II not giving a lily like it should that we could then use for other abilities. We can work around it, but it's still a flaw.

We already have to be in combat; I honestly see very little issue just removing the "no overheal" bit entirely. What's it gonna do, let us spent 3600MP in downtime to have 3 lilies during a boss-jump phase? Woohoo stop the presses for that one, lemme trade 3600mp so I can get something like my 1900 MP return assize 12s faster next time. No thanks~

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Originally Posted by AlphaSonic

PI is not an AoE centered around the person with the confession. PI only heals people with confession stacks.

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I'm aware. Hence why I referenced making a majority of my solo heals on the main tank, because I'm not going to go around healing my party like it's duck-duck-cure if I don't absolutely have to. My point is saying that it's kind of stupid to have PI heal people only with confession stacks because the majority of my confession-stacking techniques are used on the MT and only the MT (first of all), and second of all the MT is sometimes too far away from the group for any kind of mt-centered AOE going on in certain situations -- I know the latter point can be adjusted by focusing on a party member that may have confessions that isn't the MT, but the first portion still stands.

I finally got to level 70 on WHM. I have completed the full MSQ and have participated in all the EX dungeons but I haven't done any EX Primals just yet (Waiting for the second tank in my static to get caught up before participating).

Thoughts:
-The Royal Menagerie is thus far the only fight in the game where I've felt "I'm actually out of MP" in the entirety of Stormblood so far. Out of the four to five times I've participated in the fight, I've only felt that feeling once and that was on my second clear of it.
-I personally have no problem keeping up with all the UI elements on WHM and attempt to make use of all the PI and Divine Benison frequently when the opportunities present themselves. I do miscalculate my Lily usages on occasion and thus unable to Divine Benison but I figure I'll work that out with time and practice.
-While I would like to see Confession stack proc rate increase and/or more sources of proc, having a free heal worth about 13% of a tank's health go off every minute or so has been useful at supplementing the free heal kit of WHM
-As a whole the interactivity of the kit really excites me. Keeping track of Confession Stacks, Lilies, and mechanics of a fight really keep my brain jogging and trying to tetris all the different available healing options for the current situation has been a lot of fun.
-Divine Benison does everything I wanted it to do. No complaints from me.
-That moment when your Cure procs Freecure, a Lily, and Confession is amusing. So many options to choose from, so much fun!

I'd like to see a few QoLs still for Lilies and Confessions (higher proc chance and/or more spells and abilities that proc them). Other than that, I have no complaints with WHM. I'll see how it holds together when I do EX Trials and Savage Omega.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

I finally got to level 70 on WHM. I have completed the full MSQ and have participated in all the EX dungeons but I haven't done any EX Primals just yet (Waiting for the second tank in my static to get caught up before participating).

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I would be interested to hear your thoughts after you have done them, since they are (Susano ex especially) a bit movement intensive.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

I would be interested to hear your thoughts after you have done them, since they are (Susano ex especially) a bit movement intensive.

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I'll give you my thoughts, in that case. Been putting it off.

Been 70 for a bit, done both extremes, think that means I've pretty much done all content except the jump puzzle~

-MP is very much not an issue if people are performing well. Royal Menagerie is going to be one where you'll often be taxed because the people doing the fight are often new or aren't raiders, and it's a big step up from most required story bits in the game. It's a lot to swallow for some players, leading to many more deaths, much more damage taken, and a significantly longer fight than it needs to be. I often go low or even dry there simply because, yeah, there's lots of people getting themselves knocked off or otherwise killed by standing in certain bad things.

-Susano/Lakshmi? No MP issues at all outside of learning and hitting enrage - usually only happening if I've managed to eat the floor myself and everything's on cooldown. Susano in particular lets you line up Thin Air for every other set of Ukemis and just bomb everyone with Cure 3. Benison can be used pretty well for the tankbuster there, not that it's necessary but it's nice. It's also convenient to help buffer the tank eating orbs, Asylum is tailored to work with the giant sword, you can even drop it down while people are getting lightning-rooted as a way to help buffer the tank when you're jumping back and forth. Put it in the giant chasm and people can be in the bubble on either side. I also drop it when stones go out so I can contribute to DPS easier after the AoEs make you run around while the tank's still eating damage.

-Benison in general does exactly what I expected it to. It works great as filler every 30ish seconds or so, and it can be used for pre-planned mitigation though you gotta work for it a little bit. I miss stoneskin for other reasons, yes, but benison is and should be something used with regular frequency. One thing I do not miss is stoneskin's delay in activation. Benison is pretty much there as quick as you would hope it is once applied.

-Lily generation is typically fine. I find myself in situations where I wish I had one for a benison and nobody's going to be hurt for a bit, but that's about it. As before, it sucks that prehealing will not generate a lily. The return on them...meh, but the generation is fine.

-The 58 trait is as bad as we all knew it'd be. I stood in front of a dummy and spammed cures for 6-7 minutes once. It procced 5 times I believe, and that's in an absolute cure-spam scenario. It's already a small cooldown reduction on healing abilities which we've talked about at length already, and you're unlikely to see more than, like, 2-3 procs over an entire fight as it is.

-Plenary Indulgence is not as bad as everyone is making it out to be, but it's not exactly fantastic either and leaves a lot to be desired. It's far more annoying to track in 8 mans than 4 mans, and stepping over dual WHM to see what member has which WHM's confessions is even worse. Yes it's doable, but for an instant ability, having to manually target to see if it's going to heal who you think it will is...clunky at absolute best. As a single WHM, it's tracakable, it could just use improvement there. It's the same sort of "Fight the UI" difficulty they specifically said they wanted to get away from this expansion, perhaps in its worst form ever seen - as such, I'm going to continue making a fuss about it since it's directly counter to their own stated goal.

-The proc rate on PI, given everything we have with it - there's lots of ways I feel it could be redone or retuned. It's still very uncommon for me to see a 2 stack, and I've seen a 3 stack maybe like...twice? The ol' "add regen ticks" would hopefully be a very simple change and is one of the ones I feel could retune the ability for the better to see more consistent returns in all content, while allowing it to naturally stack some. There are many other ways I've thought up, such as a running counter to give someone a stack every time they've received x amount of healing from you (Definitely leading to more when you're healing heavily), but I feel regen tick would be a simple one that would work.

-The effect of PI itself sees far greater returns in 4 mans where a tank can pull 2-3 groups, where despite what everyone is saying, you WILL be tossing out a reasonable amount of cure 2s since the mobs are not currently going to die 3 seconds after the holy stuns wear off. Use it as buffer like Benison or a planned tetra, not as emergency-bene/emergency-tetra. On big pulls I often see it proc at least once, and to be honest between benison, PI, Largesse, PoM, tetra, Asylum, Assize, Thin Air, and last resort bene, I feel like a -GOD- in 4 mans right now. We knew WHM would be the king of 4-mans, but it feels like I have a ridiculous amount of options on every normal pull. Less so on the bosses, and as such....

-As we also imagined, the kit does not come together as well in 8 mans. You cannot control the health of the tank as much, leading to a decent chance of not having a good time to hit PI (see SCH concerns over their 50% hp proc heal, but to a lesser degree - however ours is a proc and we have 0 control over when it'll show up). There are far more boss-jump phase mechanics, and a heavier emphasis on AoE. Despite still curing a decent amount of the time, it's certainly less than big pulls in 4-mans - I generate less lilies and less confessions. There are more planned times for Asylum/Assize so the CDR of lilies isn't as noticeable. I still make use of all the abilities, but they definitely do not shine here as much.

-The lack of raid utility and the like is something we'll have to evaluate once Omega comes around. Susano and Lakshmi are so easy that we really can't discern much from it. Our personal DPS is higher but it's not like we open up a bajillion more chances to DPS than other healers can. If there's room for AoE damage, Aero 3 and Holy will do us well, but AST won't be far behind, especially since they're already bringing the potential balance.

-That said, I feel fine in the trials at the moment. I cannot compare to AST, as I've never leveled it, but I've seen convenient things like Noct AST completely able to negate every knockback in Susano with instant shielding, and earthly star is also a ridiculously potent heal as we all know, and they happen to line it up with Ukemi too cause why not. It definitely feels like having someone who can shield is beneficial in general, mind you, but I've had no problems with mobility in Susano or anything like that. Wipe recovery via Cure 3 is doable there as well. We have a strength in massive MP economy, we're fairly good in single target sustain with Benison and PI (which I feel could still use tweaks), and good enough in AoE healing. They're still holding onto that "You have Cure 333333333 omg" as one of our biggest pros, I feel, and they won't be able to do that forever as they keep mitigating everyone else's lack of it.

I still feel we come up short (As did SCH) compared to the godly AST brothers out there right now who simply bring so much to every table outside of 4-man trash pulls. But overall I don't feel useless by any stretch of the imagination. I also feel our kit was largely designed around playtesting in 4-mans, as it simply works better there.

I've actually meant to ask this a while ago...

How are people getting through pulls in SB dungeons without using Cure II/Cure? I'd like to think of myself as fairly good at healing dungeons so I'm wondering if I am doing something wrong or people are exaggerating.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

I've actually meant to ask this a while ago...

How are people getting through pulls in SB dungeons without using Cure II/Cure? I'd like to think of myself as fairly good at healing dungeons so I'm wondering if I am doing something wrong or people are exaggerating.

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Liars. Liars everywhere.

Those comments are secretly referring to old content where you out gear the dungeons and almost never have to heal. Any time you see a comment saying that, they have yet to actually experience the new content. Although by now I imagine most of them have been through it.

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Originally Posted by xNewbx

Liars. Liars everywhere.

Those comments are secretly referring to old content where you out gear the dungeons and almost never have to heal. Any time you see a comment saying that, they have yet to actually experience the new content. Although by now I imagine most of them have been through it.

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That's what I was thinking but I didn't want to make assumptions.

There were quite a few posts earlier in this thread that said like "only got 2 lilies my whole run of x SB dungeon" which I thought was incredibly suspect.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

That's what I was thinking but I didn't want to make assumptions.

There were quite a few posts earlier in this thread that said like "only got 2 lilies my whole run of x SB dungeon" which I thought was incredibly suspect.

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I only got 1 Confession stack during a dungeon.

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Originally Posted by AlphaSonic

I only got 1 Confession stack during a dungeon.

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That makes sense. Confessions are garbage.

So I have WHM to 70, and I've played it in all the content I can. Have my Susano'o weapon too. The sky isn't falling but I'm not really enthusiastic either.

- Outside of Benison, lily benefits are mostly irrelevant. The amount of CDR they give is not very noticeable. Either you have enough healing with your whole kit, or you don't.
- Benison is great since Stone Skin was removed, but I wish it was up more reliably.
- MP efficiency is top-tier.
- Plenary Indulgence and Confessions feel extremely underwhelming, especially for a lvl 70 ability. Wouldn't mind replacing it with something different.
- In that same vein, PI is impractical to trigger on more than one person (if you can even get the stacks for it). Is it intended to be a "nice to have if you have it" spell? It feels bad to get, honestly. I don't fish for it, I don't even care if I get it. Why does it exist, as the last thing we learn no less?
- I don't want or need to see the other WHM's Confession stacks.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

That's what I was thinking but I didn't want to make assumptions.

There were quite a few posts earlier in this thread that said like "only got 2 lilies my whole run of x SB dungeon" which I thought was incredibly suspect.

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Lilies? nah, can get plenty of those, confessions? i get more Free Cure 2s than confessions, and it's at a lower Proc %

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

I've actually meant to ask this a while ago...

How are people getting through pulls in SB dungeons without using Cure II/Cure? I'd like to think of myself as fairly good at healing dungeons so I'm wondering if I am doing something wrong or people are exaggerating.

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Rotating between Divine Seal Regen, Asylum, Tetra, Assize, Benediction is good enough.

If you meant literally ZERO cures, yeah that's kinda BS, but rotating your oGCDs between pulls, you'll probably need to cast a single Cure II for every pull or so.

besides lilys buggyness it feels like a fine mechanic but confession stacks are stupid why is it a 20% chance to get one you rarely use cure!

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Originally Posted by DreamWeaver

Rotating between Divine Seal Regen, Asylum, Tetra, Assize, Benediction is good enough.

If you meant literally ZERO cures, yeah that's kinda BS, but rotating your oGCDs between pulls, you'll probably need to cast a single Cure II for every pull or so.

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This is a whm who knows how to play, people dont understand if you never use your cd's they are worthless.

I don't do EX trials, only the story ones, and generally the 24-man raids, so this is completely from the eyes of a casual player.

Firstly, I'm glad the chance of generating Lilies was increased (that media tour thing.. oi, what a debacle). It was 100% genuine trash. Now, not as much.
Do I wish Lilies could proc on more spells? Yes, of course. Do I wish Lilies did a little more? Yes, very much so, especially in regards to DB - it's still ridiculous that it provides no extra benefit but still eats every Lily.

In 4-man content, WHM is pretty fun. I don't think many are disputing that. I'm always casting something. Never running out of MP thanks to LD and TA, constantly belting out heals and damage spells.
Generally, not much extra time is needed spent healing compared to HW (except in Ala Mhigo, where tanks love to pull everything up to the goddamn dogs, only one tank so far hasn't needed a hailstom of Cure IIs and basically everything else in my arsenal).
However, I do find myself overhealing a bit more, mainly to throw in a Cure II to be sure I can activate DB. I don't quite like that, but at least my MP isn't suffering, and no one's died on my watch yet.

When it comes to casual play, WHM is just fine and dandy.

Except, you know, for PI. That's basically an "oh the tank has a confession? Better use this heal because I'll never get to use it otherwise"-heal. That really needs a rework, both how Confessions are generated and how/where they stack. It's sad to see our level 70 spell being so extremely underwhelming.

I got my white mage to 70, and did the extreme primals both on astro and white mage.

I noticed that numbers wise white mage is doing quite a bit more DPS than astro. But from what I've seen with sleeve draw I personally draw and am able to put out more balances than I used to be able to. Fights would also end faster when I was on my astro compared to when I was on my white mage even with lower personal DPS. This is all based on my own experience though, so take it with a grain of salt.

Thin air & assize changes was as amazing as we expected it to be. The MP gained from the both is quite liberating. I'm not a fan of Planery Indulgence at all, but it is nice for a freebie heal when it does proc. But on the flip side to be quite frank, I never actually needed that freebie heal because regens were doing the job they were supposed to be doing. I don't feel as if I got any extra DPS uptime because of it. Divine Bension being gated behind lilies is frustrating personally. Liliy cooldown reduction is hardly noticed personally for myself in these fights.

I don't like lilies at all personally. I feel like I'm getting punished for being efficient at my job. In susuano/lakashimi extreme playing optimally I hardly ever had enough lilies for divine bension for tank busters. I found it frustrating personally because my regens/OGCD heals were doing most of the work on the tank, and sometimes when fishing for a lily for incoming tank buster in both fights my regen would actually outheal the damage, and I'd have no liliy for the tankbuster, gg. We have enough MP resource these days where we don't have to worry about cure 2ing as much and can be trigger happy with it, but the gameplay they want us to engage in feels bad personally. I ran into situations where a cure 1 would be enough before the tankbuster to fish for a liliy, and would result in no overhealing. But that requires gambling for a liliy, so although the tank doesn't need it, to ensure I get a lily it's better to cure 2, but that's inefficient and results in overhealing but to ensure I get a lily for Divine Bension I have to do that. PFing these fights and getting a trigger happy cohealer who tries to keep everyone topped will also prevent you from getting lilies as you cannot get lilies if you do not heal actual damage. I also do not like the fact that you can't precast heals anymore if you actually want to get lilies. Having lilies used up by tetra, aslyum & assize are awful IMO as well.

It's disappointing because astro gameplay is a lot more intuitive and fluid IMO ATM, but I do love white mage. I have a feeling we'll see quite a bit change for quite a few classes before omega comes out. Hopefully not after the raid tier. For people who care though white mage is amazing in PVP ATM.

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Originally Posted by Mnemosynia

This is a whm who knows how to play, people dont understand if you never use your cd's they are worthless.

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I use my CDs all the time. MAybe I can be a little more lenient on my Bene use but it's not very easy to keep up a tank who doesn't use CDs... which I've been getting a lot lately.

TL;DR: WHM... could have been treated worse, but could be better.

Cross Role Crap: Things could have been far worse. Lucid Dream/Shroud of Saints gained a buff, Largesse makes up for the others' lack of healing buffs, and you can always take out or add Protect/Esuna/Eye for an Eye. The other options stink, other than Swiftcast.

Lillies: Not that bad, and could have been way worse. You're always gonna use a Cure/Cure II anyway, and if you're trying to big pull, trash will hit like BRICKS. At least this rewards you for using Cure/Cure II right, but it is definitely tacked on.

Skills: This is the legitimate issue here. WHM are gutted down to a mere 22 total skills (after consolidation), whilst everyone else has 26+. Giving WHM back Stoneskin and SS II would help things out, Divine Benison could have its effect changed to something and Confessions should proc at the same rate as Lillies. Another skill after that would put WHM at the same skills as the others.

I got to i314 yesterday, have farmed most of the combat content at this point. In general, WHM is manageable. I feel outclassed by AST in almost every instance, but it's a pleasure to run with AST or SCH, as they shore up the areas we can't really handle easily. They have more options for handling mechanics in interesting ways, whereas we're expect to just power through them in a traditional manner, which seems to be what they really meant when they said WHM Pure Healer.

I spend a lot of time DPSing. Most of my time, in fact. But we only have 3 dps buttons. I would trade Confessions and Plenary for another DPS tool any day, if that's the role they want for us. The rest of the kit flows moderately well, and DB is quite useful in very specific situations, mostly in dungeons or during predictable large damage on non-tanks.

Overall, Meh+1. I don't expect we'll see any drastic changes, but I'm holding out hope for a Confessions/Plenary change.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

If Divine Benison didn't have a lily requirement, I would use it for every tankbuster. But gating it behind RNG or a required cure II... just really limits its potential.

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It's different from a stoneskin or a shield.
Your co healer (Ast or Sch) will use shield before a tank buster.
Divine Bension is for after a tankbuster.

The way how it's designed (locked behind Lilies), I use Cure II + Divine Bension after a tankbuster, not before.
It's a good maneer to prevent the tank to die with an auto-attack, or other damages after.

My raid cohealer is displeased with the changes to WHM for the first time since she started playing mid-ARR. She normally loves the class and has never really fussed over things like "meta" or "utility", just played the damn game, so her displeasure with the 4.0 WHM additions is pretty telling to me that they weren't well thought-out or were implemented poorly, at the very least. In particular she wasn't really happy with the lilies addition, and said aside from Benison use don't really affect WHM gameplay in an interesting manner.

Haven't leveled it myself enough to comment, but those are the comments offered by someone who has mained it at the raid level since like 2.4.

Been playing WHM to 70 and i gotta say Divine Benison is crap, it either uses 1 or all your lilies, it should use 1 and 1 only, or the protection it provides should scale with how many lilies are used, preferably I'd rather it use 1, oh and the time should be increased too, 30 seconds atleast.

Next, Plenary Indulgence, confession are rubbish since they go on the healed member, could heal that member, get a stack, and member would be fine and stack becomes useless, confessions should go on the WHM, stack should last longer, 1 minute, but the recast of it should also be increased too, 2 minutes, I'd say.

Not sure if this is unbalanced but that's my say.

I also thought we would get more role slots as we got to 70, we don't, still 5...
So 2 of these slot don't really give healers much choice because we need protect and esuna, infact a third is forced upon WHM and possibly AST, Lucid Dreaming (why change the name anyway, Shroud of Saints was better), yes AST has Ewer but you can't really rely on the card when you want it.

What does everyone think?