Is it just me or is WHM suffering?

Before EW WHM was always my go to healer if I was uncomfortable with a run. It was simple and I felt I could easily do my job and even prevent wipes.

With the Thin Air changes and the damage nerfs I feel basically useless on WHM. So often I run out of mana during a boss fight, and I'm talking about when the fight is going well and I'm not having to raise anyone. Just do my heals for raid wide damage and glare spam. Even with Lucid being used off cooldown I'm always out of mana.


I really think some things should be reverted back.. but it isn't like I'm an expert. Anyone else of the same mind? :v

Honestly, this isn't the first time a new expansion made at least some healers feel like their MP pool drains too fast. It is interesting that this time around WHMs are the only one complaining about it, but from what I understand, it's also largely brought about by not wanting to meld piety to gear. Of course, that's likely due to piety being 100% useless unless it prevents you from running out of MP. I do recall, however, that the past strategy was simply meld piety into the earlier gear sets of an expansion and phase it out as the higher ilvl gear brings in higher base amounts of piety you can't avoid until you're no longer melding piety at all. It's not a popular solution, I'm sure, but if you're consistently suffering from MP issues, give it a shot.

It seems SE want piety to have a reason to exist, but like much of their other design decisions around healer, it doesn't seem like they really know how to make healers play well. Even if you're willing to meld piety, it won't fix your MP issues when running content that syncs your ilvl since that kind of sync disables your materia slots!

Last resort: Buy/make some Super-Ethers. HQ ones restore 1800 MP every 270 seconds. I don't know if it's enough to plug the gap you guys are seeing, but it's something that doesn't bother your melds. You could also invest in +piety food, though I'm not sure the impact that will have.

I'm not sure the issue is with exclusively with WHM and Piety though. I think the issue is the fact that some Healing Jobs can get away with paying no or very little heed to Piety whatsoever while Job's like WHM need large amounts of Piety in order to function on longer fights. This means that other Jobs can spend a larger amount of their stat budget on stats that make them DPS or Heal more effectively which ironically only serves to further decrease any potential reliance on Piety they may already have. Given there seems to be a consensus that WHM seems to be performing worse than the other Jobs with regards to both damage output, utility and mana preservation the only thing that WHM seems to have over other Jobs is raw healing output which isn't necessary for any of the current content and only serves to drain your MP pool faster. I think what most people seem to be asking for is for either WHM MP efficiency to be increased or for the other Healing Jobs to have their Healing efficiency decreased, or maybe a mixture of the two, in order such that all Healing Jobs need to invest equally into Piety to achieve similar MP efficiency.

The other issue is that it causes further discrepencies where Jobs that need Piety may seem to do very well on shorter fights and the better other DPS Jobs perform, shortening fights, the better Jobs dependent on Piety perform, making it a nightmare for balancing purposes. This has the rather counter-intuitive result of punishing WHM for being in poorly performing raids. However better optimised raids are less likely to want WHM because of their MP issues... This also says nothing of the discrepency between dungeons and raids which further causes confusion for newer players to the game who, after healing a number of dungeons might feel as though their MP management is fine, only to discover that in raids it is not.

Now there could be arguements about certain Jobs needing more MP efficiency because their spells on average are less effective per cast, however I think that is the broad stokes of the argument. Bear in mind I'm not sure where I personally sit on these issues and it may be that 'check' stats like Piety that simply cause your Job to cease to function if you do not have the requisite amount of it should go the way of the Dodo. How MP management would change if that were to happen however is another topic.

All other healer recover at least 2k MP per minute without Lucid, just by doing things they're supposed to do anyway and that are free.
WHM recovers signifcantly less by default while also having the highest MP cost on GCD heals and cast time reduction on 2min, making it spend MP faster than others. "just meld piety" would be fine if it was the same for all healers - but it's not, only one of four healers has this problem. And with the weakest and smallest toolkit, you will have to GCD heal much sooner than the other 3 if anything at all goes wrong.
WHM has the weakest heal output and the worst MP economy by a good margin - it may not be obvious right away because you barely need healing in the first two savage fights and can muddle your way through the 3rd if your co heal is good without anyone noticing your weaknesses but once things go south, WHM is screwed no matter which fight we're talking about while the other 3 can heal and raise just fine without emptying out on MP.
WHM is MP negative just from spamming Glare and that should never be the case.
AST had some problems pre SD/ LS change in ShB but Piety was only necessary in chaotic groups so you could take more resses/ GCD heals without having to do paper cuts afterwards. But WHM is MP negative when spamming their cheapest spell they should always be spamming.
If Assize restored 10% and TA would affect the next two spells, it would be a huge help and put WHM in the same ballpark as the other three. With TA as it is right now, you have to clip it for a SC Raise.

WHM has always been suffering, just AST and SCH took a massive hit in the beginning of ShB.

WHM was given a working gameplay mechanic in that of the lilies. The other two got changed so severely that they became unpopular due to fairy issues and 5.0 AST.

WHM was literally at rock bottom coming out of StB. It had nothing to really lose in ShB.

After AST got their initial issues sorted out, the devs reduced their MP cost on spells and actually gave them MP recovery through their cards and rightfully so as it feels intuitive to gain MP for drawing cards constantly with Astrodyne as the bigger payoff.

In fact, every healer besides WHM has MP recovery built into their kits. SGE gets MP back for spending their addersgall and SCH gets back MP with keeping Aetherflow on CD and Energy Drain remaining stacks that are unused.

WHM still doesn't have MP recovery built into their gameplay. And that's because WHM has no meaningful gameplay mechanic that rewards them for using it. Lilies are not supposed to be their MP saver. Because you get them on 30s timer. Also lilies and Misery are a DPS loss. No other healer is punished for using what saves them MP. Thin Air is just another button thay can easily be forgotten and typically cannot save your MP after death as they now only work on the next healing spell.

Simply put, WHM is back to where it was. The same boring healer it always has been. The dev team is too afraid to make WHM any harder than a braindead rock so it'll never see anything more complicated than just adding more direct healing. It's actively being held back because the devs want it to be the beginner, easy healer and therefore will never be better AST or any other healer.

It's issues are at the core of its design–or lack of design. Their playrate might indicate that there's nothing wrong but that doesn't mean that WHM is in a good place.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

It is interesting that this time around WHMs are the only one complaining about it, but from what I understand, it's also largely brought about by not wanting to meld piety to gear.

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Wont deny I'm complaining cause healing is not a main role for me.. so using WHM has always been the easiest if I need to fill for farming expert runs. I only really noticed these changes when beginning the process of leveling my WHM from 80-90 and kept running into... where my mana at???? kek. WHM is an easy to pickup healer job I can use when it isn't an all around comfortable role for me. I don't dislike the intricacies of the other healer jobs; just that I don't want to subjugate 7 other people I don't know with those less then stellar [;3] skills.

In my humble opinion even if WHM is easy to pick up, a new player who may die a lot will definitely struggle coming back up to speed after being resurrected.

I kind of agree with the sentiment that WHM is working fine, it's AST that's broken. MP should require management, that's why SCH MP recovery got nerfed.

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Originally Posted by eagledorf

I kind of agree with the sentiment that WHM is working fine, it's AST that's broken. MP should require management, that's why SCH MP recovery got nerfed.

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SCH MP recovery didn't really get nerfed, they just tied all the mana to Aetherflow. This means you don't empty on mana if you have to aether heal.

AST MP is a little over the top, but there is no such thing as mana "management" in this game anymore. If you can literally go empty from pressing Glare because you had to Raise once or twice, the only way to "manage" your mana is to stop casting entirely. Which is awful design and punishes you for someone else's mistake, or because you kept uptime.

WHM mana is an abomination. Thin Air becomes worse the better you play. Lilies are technically +4% mana, but cost 85 potency each use (or 310 near the end of a fight if you don't end on a Misery). Even if you use every lily, your MP/min is worse than the other healers unless the fight was a mess and you had to GCD heal. But if the fight is too messy, you're screwed anyway because you have so few oGCD's you have to resort to hardcast heal spam well before the other healers, which you can't really sustain for long.

This isn't even mentioning low level, where WHM has the most expensive GCD heals, the least number of oGCD's, no Embrace or Kardia to boost it and has to wait the longest before getting access to MP recovery. I never understand why people recommend WHM as a starting healer, because it's absolutely terrible at low levels. Not only will you struggle more, but you'll learn slower because you have less tools to practice with. It's probably the worst beginner heal.

I can understand wanting to nerf WHM's MP economy to some degree because of its ability to raise without the massive MP cost. However, they hit WHM's MP economy too much without compensating for it in other areas, especially since WHM is far more focused on GCD healing than the other healers. That's one major problem WHM has right now: What made its MP economy good was nerfed without it being compensated in other areas.

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Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

I can understand wanting to nerf WHM's MP economy to some degree because of its ability to raise without the massive MP cost. However, they hit WHM's MP economy too much without compensating for it in other areas, especially since WHM is far more focused on GCD healing than the other healers. That's one major problem WHM has right now: What made its MP economy good was nerfed without it being compensated in other areas.

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Personally given the amount of MP we have on every other healer nearly is a raise per minute over WHM SE absolutely should lower WHM’s MP costs relative to AST to compensate. Fact is WHM’s mana issues don’t just include Thin Air’s nerf. They include the extra spells it has to cast just to match the other three’s additional throughput.

WHM is supposed to be the GCD healer, and yet AST's GCD heals almost universally surpass it.


Why even bother bringing a WHM to a party when AST would be the objectively better choice, cards and all?

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

WHM is supposed to be the GCD healer, and yet AST's GCD heals almost universally surpass it.


Why even bother bringing a WHM to a party when AST would be the objectively better choice, cards and all?

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"bEcAuSe It'S eAsY!"

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

WHM is supposed to be the GCD healer, and yet AST's GCD heals almost universally surpass it.


Why even bother bringing a WHM to a party when AST would be the objectively better choice, cards and all?

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Honestly, I'd say this is the ultimate insult for WHM. Sure, it can clear content, but the fact that it's severely outclassed in virtually every way possible by AST except personal DPS just feels terrible. WHM doesn't need to be the most meta OP healer for all forms of content, prog and farm included, but give it something it truly shines in--something that the other healers can't match just like how each of them offers something specific to them as well.

So many of WHM's tools are just blatantly worse than actions the other healers have and are strongly comparable.

Essential Dignity is vastly superior to Tetragrammaton
Horoscope is superior to Plenary Indulgence
AST has an OGCD Regen in addition to its bubble, something WHM doesn't have at all.
Neutral Sect and Expedient are far better than Temperance
Sage also has no party buffs like WHM and features flat higher potency on Dosis III vs Glare III AND has Phlegma

The list goes on.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Honestly, I'd say this is the ultimate insult for WHM. Sure, it can clear content, but the fact that it's severely outclassed in virtually every way possible by AST except personal DPS just feels terrible. WHM doesn't need to be the most meta OP healer for all forms of content, prog and farm included, but give it something it truly shines in--something that the other healers can't match just like how each of them offers something specific to them as well.

So many of WHM's tools are just blatantly worse than actions the other healers have and are strongly comparable.

Essential Dignity is vastly superior to Tetragrammaton
Horoscope is superior to Plenary Indulgence
AST has an OGCD Regen in addition to its bubble, something WHM doesn't have at all.
Neutral Sect and Expedient are far better than Temperance
Sage also has no party buffs like WHM and features flat higher potency on Dosis III vs Glare III AND has Phlegma

The list goes on.

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Not to mention that WHM's oGCD toolkit has a much longer CD than the other healers.
WHM is just needlessly punishing to play.

To be honest, WHM as a whole feels like the devs almost never interact with it. With AST, yes, it was underpowered in 5.0, but they tried new things with the job, and clearly tried to put effort into making the job interesting. WHM on the other hand feels outright neglected compared to almost any other job I've played, and with Lilybell being as badly designed as it is, this only further leads me to believe they did indeed rush WHM out the door without properly testing the job.

Don't get me wrong, the job isn't foundationally broken, but a lot of long-overdue changes are needed. Things like Lilies restoring MP, Holy having a 1.5 second cast time, MP cost and cast times being reduced across the board (WHM should absolutely have the cheapest raise, even if it's only a 500 mana decrease).

In other words, if WHM's identity is that of the GCD healing king, then the other 'pure' healer being better at GCD healing is a serious problem that needs urgently addressing.

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

In my humble opinion even if WHM is easy to pick up, a new player who may die a lot will definitely struggle coming back up to speed after being resurrected.

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This. If they want it to be the "easy" healer. Why the thin air nerf?

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Originally Posted by LuciaMirain

This. If they want it to be the "easy" healer. Why the thin air nerf?

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One of the many examples of changes we've seen that for some reason go against the dev team's desire to make healing easier and more forgiving.

I'm at 1.3k pie and mana is mostly fine, save thin air for rez or medica 2/cure 3 now instead of glare/holy spam.

MP as a resource feels like outdated design. The classic FF games used it to prevent you from only casting the most powerful spells every turn. In ffxiv you have cooldown timers to regulate how often you're allowed to use abilities. The only job with a good MP management mechanic is BLM, but that could be moved to a job gauge resource.

You could just delete MP and piety to avoid healer MP issues ever again. RDM's Verraise can become an ability with a 30s cooldown, no resource cost. Maybe even 60s or 120s cooldown if you agree that it was silly to let a caster dps chain-res in the first place.

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Originally Posted by smol_cofe

I'm at 1.3k pie and mana is mostly fine, save thin air for rez or medica 2/cure 3 now instead of glare/holy spam.

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That's almost 1000 useful secondary stat you could have geared for down the drain just to be able to function.

Meanwhile AST is at 0 pie and stacking SpS for extra dps while going MP positive.

Out of boredom I used my 711 piety & 2.47s GCD gear to Glare III/Dia a dummy non-stop. I kept Assize, PoM, Lucid, and even Thin Air on cooldown.
Just your regular 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1....

At around 10 minute mark, I had to wait about 0.5s - 1.0s to wait for lucid dream to tick just so I could go back to glare spamming. At the next PoM window, I'm completely dry without Lucid available.

Now imagine when the WHM have to dip into any of their MP-taxing heals. They'd be out of mana much sooner.

Using basically any low piety and/or fast GCD setup..? That's a death sentence for WHM.

This is an insult, to WHMs alone.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Out of boredom I used my 711 piety & 2.47s GCD gear to Glare III/Dia a dummy non-stop. I kept Assize, PoM, Lucid, and even Thin Air on cooldown.
Just your regular 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1....

At around 10 minute mark, I had to wait about 0.5s - 1.0s to wait for lucid dream to tick just so I could go back to glare spamming. At the next PoM window, I'm completely dry without Lucid available.

Now imagine when the WHM have to dip into any of their MP-taxing heals. They'd be out of mana much sooner.

Using basically any low piety and/or fast GCD setup..? That's a death sentence for WHM.

This is an insult, to WHMs alone.

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I repeated your test scenario today, but with "slightly" more piety, 1515 to be exact (that's with one piety essence melded btw, rest is from moonward gear and radiant robe).

I stopped the test after 15min, with about 95% mana. I think I only barely dipped below 70% as lowest. In difference to you I also never used Thin Air (it just wasn't neccessary).

Not saying this is good or bad, just presenting some more numbers so we can compare.

1515 is massive. Base Piety is 390. Imagine if there was a healer raid food that gave 1225 Det, which would be ridiculously good ...but it was AST/SCH/SGE only. That's what it's like being a WHM right now.

Also Thin Air is highly necessary, both because it's a dps gain so you always use it on cooldown in raid settings, and because the extra Glare casts result in more mana consumption.

Similarly SpS amount is highly important too since it results in more casts per minute, which consumes more mana. So it's a stat that hurts WHM, if you have lots of SpS on your gear you have to take more Pie to support it.

I'm still baffled that people think WHM needs more MP tools, instead of something useful like a 2nd Assize charge, or just a bit of damage.

Everyone's experience is going to be a little different of course, but I'm currently healing savage with 600 piety, getting purple parses (healing and damage), and aiming for the 479-piety BiS set as my target. If you actually use WHM's mana tools correctly (save 1 thin air charge for Raise/Medica II, and don't ignore lilies), there's not much of a problem, unless you die and lose it all. I'll admit WHM's MP economy is worse than other healers, but that just means it has slightly less than infinite mana. That's not a big problem. And it can be entirely covered by Super-Ethers.

Basically, no healer needs piety. WHM would benefit so much more from any other buff. I'm sorry you have to think about MP for once, but I swear, you don't need buffs or a buttload of piety to manage it.

One thing needs to be understood: WHM is a Basic healer. Easy to pick up. But anyone can be a master of this class, that's why basic pure healer.
Scholar a bit more advanced, need to use your...yes, brain to play with it.
Astro is an Advanced pure healer. Tricky and very busy job. Not for everyone.
Another thing needs to be understood: There is no boring job. No boring healer. Gossip is not true, don't believe in, the healer not a green dps. healer Can contribute dps but significantly Their Job is to keep the party alive and help to correct mistakes (doesn't matter why mistakes happen)
WHM can be boring if the player only contributes a dps with their 2 dps spell and shouts if a dps ask some heal: "Not my job to correct your mistakes!"
A very familiar sentence isn't it?
I speaking from experience because I have whm but I wanted some more advanced healer and I have a very good Astro. I love to play with it. A real adventure. Also I have dps as well and I have some bad taste if I see a whm at the party. That's means I will die because of a lack of heal. Because they are busy contributing that tiny dps and don't care about a real DPS.
Be a good healer, play for your party, keep them alive and you will be the best healer and busy healer and everybody learn your name, believe me.

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Originally Posted by FujikoN

A very familiar sentence isn't it?

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No.

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Originally Posted by FujikoN

Be a good healer, play for your party, keep them alive and you will be the best healer and busy healer and everybody learn your name, believe me.

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I wanna live in your wonderland.
So far the only recognition i ever got was "the one who always carries Dispel" in Eureka Hydatos. And i don't need to be a healer to do that.

Also just because WHM is a "basic healer" doesn't mean it's kit should have so many gaping holes.
Once you consolidate Cure 2 and medica into one button with their corresponding afflatus spells (right now its easy to do with a Macro although i wouldn't recommend it) and remove Cure 1 and Repose from your hotbar (because they're less than useless), WHM literally has only 26 buttons to work with. Every other Healers is at around 30. Because they actually have a good, albeit OP, healing kit as opposed to the supposedly burstiest healer. The only thing that makes AST more complex to heal with than WHM is the card gimmick, other than that it's literally easier than WHM in every comparable metric.

[QUOTE=RinaShinomiya;5825893]



"I wanna live in your wonderland."

It's up to you where you live. You can live in a complain world or you turn your world into the best possible way.

"AST more complex to heal with than WHM is the card gimmick, other than that it's literally easier than WHM in every comparable metric. "

If is easier why don't you play astro?
Never mind. :)

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Originally Posted by FujikoN

Another thing needs to be understood: There is no boring job. No boring healer. Gossip is not true, don't believe in, the healer not a green dps. healer Can contribute dps but significantly Their Job is to keep the party alive and help to correct mistakes (doesn't matter why mistakes happen)
WHM can be boring if the player only contributes a dps with their 2 dps spell and shouts if a dps ask some heal: "Not my job to correct your mistakes!"
A very familiar sentence isn't it?

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Basically, get a party that makes mistakes so we're not stuck at 1 2 1 1 1 1 or play the "who heals faster?!"-game against your co-healer, effectively wasting one of their resources. Why yes, that's a very useful reminder of how terribly thought their design vs encounter design.

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Originally Posted by FujikoN

I have some bad taste if I see a whm at the party. That's means I will die because of a lack of heal. Because they are busy contributing that tiny dps and don't care about a real DPS. Be a good healer, play for your party, keep them alive and you will be the best healer and busy healer and everybody learn your name, believe me.

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Personally in pug setting especially in normal contents, co-healers are typically the lowest order in my priority list to heal because I'm aware they HAVE their instants to fix their own mistakes (if it's even a mistake at all). They don't get to be lazy, use those buttons. They will only get heals from me from either collateral AoE heals (which they can miss if they like to live in Narnia, their mistake) or if I'm pretty sure they will die without my help.

Why should that WHM stop their Glare III to Cure II/Regen you when you can Essential Dignity/Celestial Intercession/Exaltation yourself without losing dps? I would supplement Benison, Aquaveil, or probably Tetra -if- I have them at all, but that's it. Contributing dps is also another form of 'play for your party'.

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Originally Posted by FujikoN

If is easier why don't you play astro?
Never mind. :)

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I also don't play white mage so i dunno what this Gotcha moment is trying to achieve.

The way we treat piety reminds me of accuracy from years ago.

Accuracy was important not because it felt good to increase, but because it felt bad if you didn't increase it. And that sucks.

We got rid of accuracy. Perhaps piety should go away as well.

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Originally Posted by Irenia

...We got rid of accuracy. Perhaps piety should go away as well.

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Sometimes it's hard to sympathise because of ideas like this. A lot of us liked the complexity healers had in 2.x/3.x, but the crybabies had to get them dumbed down to what we have now. And yet you still want to further simplify things. SE may have gone too far, but this is practically what the playerbase asked for.

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Originally Posted by FujikoN

One thing needs to be understood: WHM is a Basic healer. Easy to pick up. But anyone can be a master of this class, that's why basic pure healer.
Scholar a bit more advanced, need to use your...yes, brain to play with it.
Astro is an Advanced pure healer. Tricky and very busy job. Not for everyone.
Another thing needs to be understood: There is no boring job. No boring healer. Gossip is not true, don't believe in, the healer not a green dps. healer Can contribute dps but significantly Their Job is to keep the party alive and help to correct mistakes (doesn't matter why mistakes happen)
WHM can be boring if the player only contributes a dps with their 2 dps spell and shouts if a dps ask some heal: "Not my job to correct your mistakes!"
A very familiar sentence isn't it?
I speaking from experience because I have whm but I wanted some more advanced healer and I have a very good Astro. I love to play with it. A real adventure. Also I have dps as well and I have some bad taste if I see a whm at the party. That's means I will die because of a lack of heal. Because they are busy contributing that tiny dps and don't care about a real DPS.
Be a good healer, play for your party, keep them alive and you will be the best healer and busy healer and everybody learn your name, believe me.

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https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...58/2IuhYWU.png

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Originally Posted by Kabzy

Sometimes it's hard to sympathise because of ideas like this. A lot of us liked the complexity healers had in 2.x/3.x, but the crybabies had to get them dumbed down to what we have now. And yet you still want to further simplify things. SE may have gone too far, but this is practically what the playerbase asked for.

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Accuracy is not complexity. It's "stack to x amount and forget about it". Piety is even worse because you bring a weak stat as a "just incase", then if you and your group play well, it's completely dead. There's no skill involved, you just bring a big chunk of uselessness incase your group are potatoes.

It irks me when players cling to things that are clunky, broken or useless and argue that trying to mitigate their negative impact is skill or complexity, because it prevents us from having actual skill rewarding jobs that feel smooth to play. Instead of focusing on gameplay improvements, you're focusing on fluff.

Piety can go out the window, into the garbage and be burnt.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Accuracy is not complexity. It's "stack to x amount and forget about it". Piety is even worse because you bring a weak stat as a "just incase", then if you and your group play well, it's completely dead. There's no skill involved, you just bring a big chunk of uselessness incase your group are potatoes.

It irks me when players cling to things that are clunky, broken or useless and argue that trying to mitigate their negative impact is skill or complexity, because it prevents us from having actual skill rewarding jobs that feel smooth to play. Instead of focusing on gameplay improvements, you're focusing on fluff.

Piety can go out the window, into the garbage and be burnt.

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Nope, and this tunnel vision you have is exactly the problem. I'll agree accuracy was a bit unnecessary. However, MP management used to be a genuine skill healers needed. And it wasn't a solo responsibility. You'd have to be careful with your resources because the BRD would have to use Ballad to sacrifice their own DPS for healers. There was actual synergising between roles. Healers also had things like Virus and E4E for more raid responsibility beyond throwing an OGCD out every 2m.

Throwing piety out just means that in the rare occasion you do have MP issues, you're not expected to adjust at all. You want yet another layer of niche complexity thrown out so you can spam 1 all day.

Also clunk is definitely subjective. Some people loved the risk-reward of Cleric Stance, others like you labelled it clunky so you could get rid of it and have an easier life.

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Originally Posted by Kabzy

Nope, and this tunnel vision you have is exactly the problem. I'll agree accuracy was a bit unnecessary. However, MP management used to be a genuine skill healers needed. And it wasn't a solo responsibility. You'd have to be careful with your resources because the BRD would have to use Ballad to sacrifice their own DPS for healers. There was actual synergising between roles. Healers also had things like Virus and E4E for more raid responsibility beyond throwing an OGCD out every 2m.

Throwing piety out just means that in the rare occasion you do have MP issues, you're not expected to adjust at all. You want yet another layer of niche complexity thrown out so you can spam 1 all day.

Also clunk is definitely subjective. Some people loved the risk-reward of Cleric Stance, others like you labelled it clunky so you could get rid of it and have an easier life.

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I'd argue piety is a stat that actively contributes to the Nukespam gameplay and disincentivises usage of GCD healing due to them being an extreme MP negative.

At the end of the day you'll never convince anyone that gearing a stat that increases MP regen exclusively is worth it when you could gear Crit or SpS or Det, all of which increase your damage while also helping out with healing. Piety doesnt even boost healing potency.

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Originally Posted by Kabzy

Nope, and this tunnel vision you have is exactly the problem. I'll agree accuracy was a bit unnecessary. However, MP management used to be a genuine skill healers needed. And it wasn't a solo responsibility. You'd have to be careful with your resources because the BRD would have to use Ballad to sacrifice their own DPS for healers. There was actual synergising between roles. Healers also had things like Virus and E4E for more raid responsibility beyond throwing an OGCD out every 2m.

Throwing piety out just means that in the rare occasion you do have MP issues, you're not expected to adjust at all. You want yet another layer of niche complexity thrown out so you can spam 1 all day.

Also clunk is definitely subjective. Some people loved the risk-reward of Cleric Stance, others like you labelled it clunky so you could get rid of it and have an easier life.

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Stacking Piety to X amount for safety is not MP management. Just like doing autos when you're out of MP isn't MP management.
Real MP management is about actively making choices but we currently don't have good choices because of the way healers are designed: oGCDs don't cost MP, you can't just not raise someone because "MP management" when the next mechanic needs them alive nor can you let someone die because "MP management".

MP management would be something like having a skill with a low cooldown, e.g. 10s, that boosts your MP regen for some time. You could theoretically keep in cooldown and have infinte MP.
But it's a dps loss over your nuke, so you'll want to use it only as much as necessary. Got raised but LD still on cooldown for some time? Keep it on cooldown for a bit. Needed to chain ress? Same. Party plays well? Use it less often.
Unlike Piety, which is just a constant flat MP regen increase, it's dynamic.
Or the classic efficient but weaker healing vs expensive but quick/ strong healing which we don't have here because GCD healing is a huge dps loss and the weaker spells are also often less efficient than the stronger ones. You take your pick according to what the situation requires.
Or a skill that reduces damage output by a certain % but also MP cost by a signifcant amount. Best used for raising and GCD healing, obviously, but also viable if something went wrong and you're low on MP as it would be a dps loss in a vacuum but a dps gain vs just nuking like normal and then doing autos.
Or dps skills having different MP costs and you could stack a buff that when consumed, reduces MP cost; letting you use stronger, more expensive skills without emptying on MP but also great for GCD healing/ ressing.

Designing and balancing all of that is obviously more difficult than just giving us a stat that you "stack to comfort level" and call it a day.
Most healers don't hate MP management, they just hate passive "MP management" like Piety or "keep LD on cooldown, no downside to not doing it". It's fluff; not complexity, not active, not something that needs you to evaluate each situation.
Mage's Ballad is a good example of active MP management; Piety is not. It's just desperately clinging to something we no longer have.
I wish we had active MP management, I wish it was still an actualy layer of complexity to healer gameplay but I'll never consider Piety of all things as an example for MP management.

I wish they would do something with Piety. Like, make the heals stronger. Reducing the mana cost on spells. Reduces incoming damage. Give you more Max MP like before.. or even make up something like a direct hit heal clone. At least, something more than a dead stat that gives you a very, very small increase of mp gain per tick. It's definitely the game's worst stat just because of that.. but it really doesn't have to be.

At the same time, I wish they would give the Stormblood mana tools back to ranged DPS and Caster. Sure, that wouldn't fix the MP issues that WHM have, but it would make it work via a team effort, at least. And if you don't want this to be abused by DRK, just give them a debuff or a trait that limits coming mana from the party, like the DPS stance used to do, I don't know.

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Originally Posted by FujikoN

One thing needs to be understood: WHM is a Basic healer. Easy to pick up. But anyone can be a master of this class, that's why basic pure healer.
Scholar a bit more advanced, need to use your...yes, brain to play with it.
Astro is an Advanced pure healer. Tricky and very busy job. Not for everyone.
Another thing needs to be understood: There is no boring job. No boring healer. Gossip is not true, don't believe in, the healer not a green dps. healer Can contribute dps but significantly Their Job is to keep the party alive and help to correct mistakes (doesn't matter why mistakes happen)
WHM can be boring if the player only contributes a dps with their 2 dps spell and shouts if a dps ask some heal: "Not my job to correct your mistakes!"
A very familiar sentence isn't it?
I speaking from experience because I have whm but I wanted some more advanced healer and I have a very good Astro. I love to play with it. A real adventure. Also I have dps as well and I have some bad taste if I see a whm at the party. That's means I will die because of a lack of heal. Because they are busy contributing that tiny dps and don't care about a real DPS.
Be a good healer, play for your party, keep them alive and you will be the best healer and busy healer and everybody learn your name, believe me.

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Taking that last line. Being a good healer, playing for your party and being the best healer won't mean you will be a busy healer. It will mean the opposite, because good healers heal less. If your party is good then your healers heal less. You end up finding there's this big period of time where you're not healing and it can be pretty chunky, especially on something like WHM where it is easy to keep people's health topped up.

So what is your reward for being great at WHM?
Dia->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare->Glare

There is a reason it is called "Glare Mage" by some.

There are different views on this, but we can all at least agree that this is not what a busy healer looks like...and that is a problem.

It can still be basic to pick up without such a lackluster healer downtime.

But I agree with the general sentiment that different healing jobs should vary in difficulty to play and should vary to different preferred playstyles. But one of the problems we get is that for a lot of content healing is pretty low effort, especially if you are experienced. However, one reason I like SGE is because it has a steeper learning curve, but I am actually resistant to optimising my SGE play because I worry I will hit a spot where I stop enjoying it because I hit a level of optimisation where I am locked into longer periods of spamming Dosis...which arguably goes against the mantra of a good healer, but hey, what's the point if I'm not enjoying it? As long as I am good /enough/.

However, I wouldn't expect WHM to have a steeper learning curve and that people should find it fairly intuitive when they pick it up. But it doesn't have to be braindead to do that.

Ugh piety, the dump stat of FF14. It kinda reminds me of resistance in Dark Souls, existing only as trap for new players who do not understand how stats work.

Goal is to become mana positive when doing damage until group learns fight then mana neutral. Only white mage appears to be mana negative when doing damage yet all healer gear always has piety.

Pre-gearing if you are raising yourself oom and so is co-healer you are probably already doomed to hit enrage anyways and time could be better spent on learning mechanics then "the complexity of MP regen".

Most other rpgs with stats bother making said stats useful in multiple ways.

Examine Will/Mind for one brief moment using dungeons and dragons (and all things based on the DnD rule sets). It will increase MP/MP recovery BUT also provides magic defense, allows one to resist attacks against the mind, and can increase hit chance for spells.

Compare this with piety's low MP regeneration yet nothing else offered. Feels like I only have this stat because my kit doth not have MP regeneration baked into it which is.. bad design?

Every point in piety can also create cascading effect. I have less crit/determination/direct hit so now my heals heal for less annnnnd am doing less damage. This will result in my needing additional healing (possibly) and will extend duration of fight which as you can guess will result in more healing required. More damage required for clearing and more healing required means I will expend what little tools white mage already has. I may require expensive gcd healing, mechanics will occur for longer increasing chance someone will mess up resulting in.. more healing and damage required to clear.

Or, or I could just meld useful stats and have useful stats on my gear? Perhaps even use the fantastic MP economy every other healer but white mage has?

What really chaffs my everything about piety is how detrimentally it can effect you when synced. Gear bloated with piety? Welp! Shall meld the other stats then! Oh wait materia is disabled when synced and 99% of content is done synced so now I have gcd of slow, no crit, and useless MP regen in content that barely requires any healing to begin with. Brilliant!