I Love 6.11 White Mage--But Should Afflatus Misery be Given Earlier?

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to say that compared to its past iterations, I really enjoy the lilies being dps neutral now. Whereas before I only used them during downtime (or for emergencies), now I use them all the time.

It nice to actually think about the lily gauge ... actively using lilies to avoid overcapping, and counting how many miseries I can get in an encounter.

However, I still believe white mage could use some work in these areas:

1) I'd like to see Holy have a weave window. It feels bad having to clip holy in order to heal tanks.

2) I'd also like to see lilybell have its time duration at least extended by a couple seconds. (I have to really time it in order to get the most out of it).

3) And, probably the biggest one, I'd like to see afflatus misery moved down the moment you get your lilies in Heavensward. Why? Without having to think about afflatus misery, pre-level 80, I'm back to pre-6.11 white mage where I avoid using lilies, and it feels bad. I know some people don't care about older content, but as someone who largely does daily roulettes, that older content tends to be the majority of my experience playing FFXIV.

If Misery's potency gets brought down pre-76, then I see no issue with that.

Personally, I'd just like to see some skill and spell pruning but that's probably more along the lines of 7.0 anyway.

WHM just needs an overhaul from the ground up. Too many key skills are locked at the end of the leveling spectrum, especially since the majority of them are just replacements for old removed skills, or are just copies of existing skills.

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Originally Posted by Mae_Proet

1) I'd like to see Holy have a weave window. It feels bad having to clip holy in order to heal tanks.

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I’m of the opinion that Holy should be a 1.5s cast time just like Gravity. I think the developer’s defense of it still being 2.5s is “Holy stuns mobs tho”—yet they don’t consider you only get 7 to 9 seconds of that benefit before stun immunity kicks in. And while the stun is valuable, it’s not reason enough to not make Holy have a 1.5s cast time.

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2) I'd also like to see lilybell have its time duration at least extended by a couple seconds. (I have to really time it in order to get the most out of it).

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Personally, I think Lilybell could be brought down to 2 minutes. As it is now, it’s basically Earthly Star that doesn’t also deal damage but is on a three time as longer cooldown. I don’t think the heal potency is really defense enough to leave it at 3 minutes.

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3) And, probably the biggest one, I'd like to see afflatus misery moved down the moment you get your lilies in Heavensward. Why? Without having to think about afflatus misery, pre-level 80, I'm back to pre-6.11 white mage where I avoid using lilies, and it feels bad. I know some people don't care about older content, but as someone who largely does daily roulettes, that older content tends to be the majority of my experience playing FFXIV.

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Even if you don’t have Misery, I wouldn’t just not use your lilies if you need them. If it came down to Cure II versus Solace, I would pick Solace each time due to the instant cast and the fact that it doesn’t consume mana. I know they’ve made improvements to WHM’s mana economy, but some of the heals, in my opinion, are still way too costly. Cure II being one of them. I don’t know why it’s still 1,000 MP compared to AST’s Benefic II being 700 MP for the same potency. Casting Solace with no Misery refund would still be as much as a loss as casting Cure II, so I just opt for the free one before I start with the mana drain one.

For the lilies themselves, I believe Rapture should be learned much lower than 76. Somewhere in 50-60, you should have access to both Solace and Rapture. It’s also nonsensical that you learn Misery at 74, but don’t learn Rapture until 76. I’ve never understood that. Misery could be a decent level 60 or level 70 capstone ability, with Rapture and Solace coming before it to give WHMs an introduction to the system. Misery would be a capstone reward for utilizing said lilies properly.

I also think skills like Tetra and Assize should have charges. 2 Tetra charges would make it a bit more in line with Essential Dignity, even if not as strong. And I don’t see how that would hurt. Assize having two charges would allow you to actually sit on one charge to use for free healing and mana Regen without taking a huge damage loss. So long as you don’t over-cap the charges. You’d still likely blow both in the opener, re-openers, and bursts—but it would make the skill have the healing potential versus “I press this on cooldown for damage, not for healing”.

Adjusting its potency for lower levels would be ideal.

How would you rework it? Aside from the changes I mentioned, I currently love the current playstyle of white mage.

They could just adjust the stun for a 1.5 second cast time. I also agree lilybell should be on a shorter cooldown.

As for the tetra and assize charges, I'd rather that they rework them in a way that's unique to white mage. For example, I like that assize has damage on it, compared to celestial intersection (if that's what you call it). As for tetra, I'd just add a regen/mitigation on it, and make it feel like equilibrium.

But let's say they did decide to go with charges, I'd probably overheal more than I do right now. Even with the worst teams, I currently find myself overhealing with a lily followed by an assize.

In my opinion the best thing you could do is make Lilies deal damage AND heal every time they are used. That way they’re neutral in all situations as opposed to randomly being dps positive to blow through if you have downtime. Then you can have Misery be tuned as an independent burst cooldown to offset WHM’s lack of a raid buff. This also solves the issue of not having Misery until way later in your levelling progression by giving you the thing you want from it immediately.

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Originally Posted by Mae_Proet

As for the tetra and assize charges, I'd rather that they rework them in a way that's unique to white mage. For example, I like that assize has damage on it, compared to celestial intersection (if that's what you call it). As for tetra, I'd just add a regen/mitigation on it, and make it feel like equilibrium.

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I’m not proposing that Assize lose its damage, and adding a charge to it would not impact the way it functions as a skill. It would still behave the way it does now. The issue with it now is that it is used ONLY for damage—never as a heal. Holding it for healing is suboptimal. Adding charges to the ability would return the flexibility that it had in HW and early SB prior to when they buffed the damage aspect of it and lowered the CD to 45 seconds, and you could actually use it for healing if it is needed. I’m more so thinking about reducing the rigidness of it now. (Even though it is more or less moot since healers are so overpowered and the overall healing required in content is pretty low.)

I don’t know why you’re talking about Celestial Intersection, so I’m a little confused there—that is more of a Divine Benison equivalent, since it provides a small shield + heal top off. It isn’t an Assize equivalent. Assize isn’t really equal to anything when you compare it to AST’s toolkit except maybe Star, since both have damage and healing attached, and are primarily used on CD for damage.

Tetra would feel better to have stacks and function the same as it is now, personally. It would be a priority single-target heal and would allow you to save your Lilies for Raptures versus using them for Solace; Rapture is simply better compared to it. It’s doubtful that they would give it a mitigative aspect since WHM has never been a mitigative healer. Temperance and Divine Benison are about the extent of its mitigation abilities compared to the other healers. And Benison is basically an oGCD Stoneskin, which we had back in ARR and HW.

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But let's say they did decide to go with charges, I'd probably overheal more than I do right now. Even with the worst teams, I currently find myself overhealing with a lily followed by an assize.

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The issue with overhealing more so has to do with the fact that content in this game is not designed to have high incoming damage that requires healing, and healing potencies on all four healers are incredibly high compared to the damage that needs healing. And the “more casual” content you do, the worse you notice that healing requirements are super low. Both AST and WHM have high overheal since they have damage abilities with healing attached that are not worth it to delay (Earthly Star, Assize).

There is some wiggle room to adjust your Lilies around Assize if possible. Stuff like that takes practice though, and fight knoweldge; but it can be done.

I see. So you want assize to have two charges, so it can have the flexibility it once had? I've only been playing since Shb, so I'm working from there. But still, I feel like charges is something you just use on cooldown. I'd rather they do something more interesting with the existing skills than just add charges.

As for overhealing, I really don't need two charges of tetra. I've been fine even with some of the awful teams I gotten. Even in the savage fights I've seen my brother play (as I don't do harder content), they don't seem to have any need for more healing. This is another reason why I'd prefer making existing skills more interesting than add charges to them.