On 2.1 WHM Nerfs

The language in my original post about this overstepped the forum guidelines, and for that I apologise. I reacted angrily. Still, I do want to keep this as a point of discussion so I shall repost and hope to address the crux of the matter in a more rational manner.

I am extremely annoyed at the nerfing of WHM's in the 2.1 Patch Notes in the following manner:

1) Removal of the Thunder cross-class skill. I ran some theoretical numbers on a near optimal rotation, and while the single target DPS reduction isn't huge if we replace Thunder with another Stone II (a net 1.5% loss in single-target dps potential), it comes at the expense of an extra 7.5% mana cost. This nerf isn't huge for WHM's alone, but it does make mana management more of an issue if WHMs want to DPS assist as well.

2) Nerfing of Holy down to a 200 Potency power from 240 (a 17% nerf). Holy costs 532 mana, which is for most White Mages, about 1/8th of their total mana pool. WHM's do not regenerate mana like a BLM does. It also draws a ton of aggro if misused. Usage of Holy is a carefully calculated application based upon the circumstances at the time. It's not a spammable power. I hear people say it's over-powered. At 240 potency and with Cleric Stance on it was strong, but once again in any fight it couldn't be cast more than about 4-6 times (depending on Shroud cooldown) or otherwise you have no mana left with which to heal the party with, so it suited its purpose well. A strong bursting AoE that helped out where possible.

3) Nerfing of the Cure II proc (Overcure) which previously granted a guaranteed Crit Heal on a Cure III. Now we get a normal Cure III, but at half-mana. Yes, we get a radius upgrade of Cure II from 4y to 6y, which is still tiny. Positional latency is such that while as a healer you think you're gonna get everyone in a single area with a Cure III, most often people have moved out of its area of effect long ago as far as the server is concerned. Cure III has always been a single target burst heal with the Overcure proc with it just being lucky if it hits others. 6y is still too small. It's a 550 cure potency spell that costs 399 mana with a 6y radius. 2 x Medica I's instead have a 600 total cure potency with a 15y radius around the WHM for 638 mana. Medica II grants a net total 700 cure potency for 665 mana and with a 20y radius. If you want to heal multiple people with no questions asked the Medica's are the way to go. IMO, at least make the Cure III an 8y radius so if you cast it on any of the melee DPS in a fight, it's generally going to heal ALL of the melee people. Cure III USED to be a good proc for a guaranteed 825 cure potency crit heal which made its mana cost justifiable. Now with the half-mana proc nerf, it's become a 550 potency heal for 200 mana, instead of a 650 potency Cure II for 266 mana. In effect, Cure III has gone from being situationally useful on a proc, to being no better than a Cure II on a proc.

4) Nerfing of Medica II's burst group healing capability. Yes, I know, it's now at half potency for twice as long, so it all adds up the same, but Medica II used to be THE goto power when you want the whole team healed close to full before the next large AoE attack from the boss comes, because of the course of 15s it's a total 700 potency cure (910 potency with Divine Seal active). It is notably very useful in primal battles where people gather and then have to scatter again quickly to avoid AoEs. It was something that could be cast and left to do its job which was usually done before the next big AoE. Now with the 30s duration, that's no longer a guarantee. People may say "well just throw a Medica I in there as well", but if people need to scatter and the WHM needs to move too to avoid an AoE, there's often not time to hit everyone with the Medica I as well, and it also burns more mana in the process, which is a precious resource for the WHM".

Now, plenty of people seem to think that healers should not try to DPS, and IMO, that is one of the most inane, asinine, idiotic and stupid statements I hear. There are times when things are a DPS race, and if a WHM can throw up some regenerative heal-over-time heals, and pitch in an increase overall party dps by a third, then why not? You're in WP in a low dps party and the stalker's about to catch up, do you want the WHM to just stand there and heal only and risk a wipe from the party getting stabbed to death, or would you like the WHM become the deific personification of holy vengeance that they can be, and assist in taking out the bad guys. You're in AK with a low-DPS party, do you want the WHM to not assist with the wall, or not helping to take Anantaboga down?

I DPS strongly as a WHM where possible, and you know what, ALL (but one idiot I came across who insisted I just heal only 'cos "that's your ONLY job") appreciates it greatly. With the grind of earning enough to buy a house, or real life pressures of your partner calling you to dinner, bed, whatever, why would you want WHM's to be nerfed and not dps such that runs take longer? It doesn't make sense. These nerfs don't just impact WHM's alone, they impact everyone indirectly. You may say that in the true end-game content that all you can do is heal, and I wholly agree. I've done Coil. It's a major healing-only job that is actually fun, and I've had plenty of people compliment me as being one of the better healers on my server. Coil isn't a 24/7 thing though, and I get called on to help grind out people's Myth Tomestones because their runs go that much faster when I'm in the party because I'm a strong DPS'ing WHM.

At the end of the day, my disappointment with the 2.1 patch notes for WHMs is huge.

Holy was really over powered, mainly in dungeons. It was almost as powerful as flare and could be cast more frequently. This was a reasonable nerf, and not something to be upset about.

Flare might cost "14%" of your mana pool, but flare costs 100%.

I can live without the thunder, that alone wouldn't have bothered me, the medica 2 is a good change for us really geared WHM though as it was topping people off so fast for me that most of its ticks were being wasted, so I do kind of like the 2xduration and I will live with that. I never used Cure3 to begin with, not even on procs. I honestly should just pull it off my bar at this point.

The only one that really bothers me is the holy nerf as most parties have come to depend on the WHM to holy in certain situations like the slime boss and with it's already ridiculous cast time and MP cost, it was right where it should have been for PVE content. I have to think this was done because of the devil that destroys the PVE aspect of all MMOs, PVP. If they were going to cut down the potency by that much, they should have AT LEAST cut down the MP cost by about the same percentage.

Please don't move from WHM to SCH. Stay WHM. We don't need people who kneejerk every change as a nerf in our class. Thanks.

I like the changes they made to White mage.

cure 3 being half mana now is a buff yo cure 3, a crit cure 3 for tons of mana was a waste of mana now with the new cost it will have a niche .

medica 2 is less hate all at once so this isnt really that bad,

holy and thunder is whatever as whm is a healer not a dps.

virus was the biggest thing and its not even that bad.

Thunder removal and Holy nerfs were whatever....it's mostly a nerf to speedruns.



Medica II nerf is unacceptable. This game strongly encourages keeping people topped off rather than triage healing. Especially right when Titan hits phase 5. Other examples include keeping people topped off on ADS in case somebody lags and gets hit by a laser (on low hp targets the AOE ticks can kill right after), etc etc.


Moreover, it is a straight nerf to tank healing, as the HoT was very useful coupled with Regen on tanks.

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Originally Posted by LeafyVegetable

Join the scholar master race :D

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Already at level 30 SCH since I read the patch notes. I'll be a level 50 SCH as soon as possible. Good thing I hadn't purchased any Myth gear yet for my WHM as I was dualling both Paladin and WHM, so all my darklight gear can be moved straight to the SCH. I'll just need to get my relic, and yeah, I'm there.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Holy was really over powered, mainly in dungeons. It was almost as powerful as flare and could be cast more frequently. This was a reasonable nerf, and not something to be upset about.

Flare might cost "14%" of your mana pool, but flare costs 100%.

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How could it be cast more frequently exactly? A BLM has infinite and endless mana and can always just regen their MP, a WHM DOES NOT have infinite mana and has to worry about keeping their party alive, so the holy only came into play in situations to help out your group when running with low AE DPS and such. What this statement tells me is that some BLMs got together and cried about WHM being OP and got us nerfed. Maybe there be some BLMs who won't be getting healed anymore. XP

Holy was very overpowered. It's a normal nerf. For the CureIII "nerf", I don't see at as a nerf since it used so much MP for less potency than CureII and less range than Medica. I never used the proc. Now, I might consider using it since WHM is all about MP management.

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Originally Posted by Altheras

How could it be cast more frequently exactly?

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I assume he was referring to how you could chain 3 Holy's back-2-back with nary a penalty, solely because of the stun effect rendering mobs immobile the entire time, to which the devs didn't touch that aspect of the spell.

These changes really aren't that bad. The change to Holy will be annoying in dungeon SR's.

Cure III is still very useful if you need a quick burst heal on a stacked party- ie Fireball on Twintania. Now that it costs so much less mana and the range is slightly larger, I think it is more useful than it used to be.

The change to the Medica II burst healing will take some adjusting, but it really isn't that bad. For instance, on Titan's tumults, one Medica II followed with a normal Medica will be far more than sufficient healing to keep everyone topped off. You also seem to forget there is usually another healer around. If you are solo healing, then Medica II > Medica is still more than manageable.

If people take more damage than they should and die, then that is their fault.

Cure III is now useless. (Unless they make some raid mechanic where your Healers will be out of Medica range. Lol?)

It was useless even with the nice auto crit that you get on the CII proc. In fact, the only time I ever used a Proc'd Cure III was during Titan when everyone stacks on jumps. Totally unnecessary, but I like to use it to keep my tank awake and paying attention, and as solo WHM healer in Titan it was pretty much guaranteed that everyone was full HP in one heal.

...Nobody uses Cure III without a proc, and even now...It's going to be extremely rare to see a WHM even use a Proc'd Cure III unless a game mechanic forces it.

Really don't see how Yoshi can call this a buff.

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Originally Posted by Castillan

It is notably very useful in primal battles where people gather and then have to scatter again quickly to avoid AoEs.

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There is your answer, instead of spamming Medica II then Med I, why not try Medica II and Cure III?

From what I see, I think Medica II is the biggest buff out of everything they did, more often than not, people will top off the party even with the Medica II regen on, what does that mean? That's 10~15 seconds of wasted regen potential AND more aggro generated in a shorter time. Now with the new effect, those tics are spread out more, which means less aggro and while this can be situational band aid the little damages that people get from making mistakes.

In a coordinated party, people will know when to stack and say for example we stack on Titan's butt because of Tumelts, with the new range of Cure III, it can reach the tank (if you place yourself properly) it'll have a bigger potency, and I believe that's worth the extra 100 MP, instead of using Medica I twice.

WHM got buffed...not nerfed. Why are people talking about WHM dps and then complain about running out of mana? I'm confused. Do WHM have mana problem or not? Holy is a huge mana sink. You can only use it a lot when a bard is present. Most of the time when I dps, I just use stone II and aero II, it's much more efficient for bosses. Holy is only good for wp speed run and T4 but I rarely do SR cuz I had enough of wp.

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Originally Posted by lordbones

Cure III is now useless. (Unless they make some raid mechanic where your Healers will be out of Medica range. Lol?)

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24 mans. At the very least, 6 tanks in range of C3. Also, Medica probably won't hit the other 2 parties, so C3 will/should become the go to melee heal if multiple cross party people have low health.

Cure 3 is less useless now procd. I may consider putting it in my cross bar.

Though I'd be much happier if they increased the refresh potency of shroud of saints and/or added a few more seconds on divine seal

Holy Nerf is unacceptable makes me care even less than I already did

Would still take Holy over Shadow Flare any day :)

Didn't you have this thread already?

...Wasn't it called "Holy Nerf?"

I hardly ever used holy except on speedruns never in coil.. when your WHM is geared up medica 2 was over healing anyways I like that it lasts longer.. and cure 3 well hell I never used it cause it wasn't mana efficent seems lile they fixed it by reducing the cost on cure 2 proc.. not nerfing imo looks lile balancing.. the reduction in cure 2 cast time is fantastic

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Originally Posted by Nofacekiller

Medica II nerf is unacceptable. This game strongly encourages keeping people topped off rather than triage healing. Especially right when Titan hits phase 5.

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that's the opposite of what titan does...

titan shows you that when the unavoidable damage comes in like clockwork, you can take your time to heal everyone up rather than scramble to keep everyone topped off at all times.

medica II nerf honestly makes complete sense, and to be completely honest every whm worth their salt would still cast it even if they cut the potency in half and didn't double the duration - it's ridiculously efficient

To OP, whew, golly, that's toned down? Sorry I missed your earlier posting.

Actually, you made some good points, some I agree with some not, but referring to people who have a different opinion as 'inane', 'asinine', 'idiotic', 'stupid', 'idiot', undermines your own arguments.

Personally, I like these "nerfs" to the WHM.

1) Never used Thunder, so whatever. And I don't really care about the Holy nerf; healer having one of the best AoE attacks always seemed odd. If I was DPSing it was Aero and a Stone II or three occasionally, or Holy in a WP speed-run, but outside the Slime boss (my BLM Flares the adds anyway, so I only ever needed to Holy twice anyway) and King (took me one or two Holies to kill adds depending on RNG anyway, so now it always takes two. Big deal, I have the mana to do that, and the King takes that much extra damage) I used it more for the AoE stun (which is unchanged) rather than damage.

2) Cure 3 actually has a use now. Increased range and when proc'ed costs less mana than Cure II. Even if it only hits one tank and a melee, I'll take it.

3) Medica II...honestly, the regen was causing so many aggro problems, and like others have said, cast Medica II then spam Medica if you have to AoE heal a party. Much more mana and healing efficient.

4) Virus...this is the only real important nerf I see, but its not a WHM nerf so much as a magic nerf overall. Yeah, not going to use it in 8-mans, or if my 4-man has a SMN, so it kinda hurts a little. Just have to adjust tactics to compensate.

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Originally Posted by Cynric

cure 3 being half mana now is a buff yo cure 3, a crit cure 3 for tons of mana was a waste of mana now with the new cost it will have a niche .

medica 2 is less hate all at once so this isnt really that bad,

holy and thunder is whatever as whm is a healer not a dps.

virus was the biggest thing and its not even that bad.

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1.) Cure III is a joke. I have never, not once, cast Cure III intentionally. Medica I and II are less MP and have a larger radius. I don't even have it on my hotbar anymore.

2.) Medica II is a wash, though the potency was nice to have in crisis moments. If you pull hate using Medica II, you aren't using your abilities or managing hate correctly.

3.) Do you even play WHM? It's not viable in Coil. One place. ONE. It's viable EVERYWHERE ELSE. Would you rather I just stand there waiting for someone to take damage? Let's not kill faster, more efficient, and complete dungeons ahead of schedule because you want the WHM to never, under any circumstances cast any offensive magic. Standing around doing nothing waiting for HP to fall is a waste of potential. Please reevaluate your post as this makes you look ignorant.

4.) Yeah, go tell that to Turn 5 and let me know how that works out for you.

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Originally Posted by LeafyVegetable

Join the scholar master race :D

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Already there basking in the glory, haha.

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Originally Posted by Nofacekiller

Medica II nerf is unacceptable.

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You can spam MII in Turn 2 boss and kill him EASY on his rage.