ARR WHM is built different compared to the rest of the entire game pre-3.0

I decided to do a bit of a venture into the new dungeons since they were reworked, and I did so - as a White Mage. It was definitely a different experience, bad tanks not withstanding, but I will say this: Once you hit Lv 50, you're in for a rude awakening.

I've begun to learn how Cure II and Cure fit into the equation for WHM a bit more despite our current end-game content emphasizing the constant use of oGCDs and HoTs, and we've certainly heard the stories about where Sylphies come from. I now know why.

Once you hit 50, you begin to see that there is VERY LITTLE DIFFERENCE between Cure II and Cure - 600 HP recovery just about. It's about what you'd expect with how they try to bait you into using Cure a lot - and they did bait me - because the potency(700 vs. 450) for just a ~600 HP difference really didn't matter as much as it would for a whole GCD. I wasn't getting my healing out as fast as I should, yet with Cure I was able to do so because Cure II isn't substantial - not until you get to Heavensward, where they award you with Lilies to use for this reason.

I find it a mundane way to shoehorn people into "Baby's First Healer". By the time you start getting towards the end of Heavensward, you start to feel your Cure IIs have a bit more impact because the stats in particular have gone up - HP in particular. You see this consistently scale throughout Stormblood up until Shadowbringers, where Cure technically isn't needed anymore. Having some consistency early on would be very helpful in the long run so as to match how players play the job later on.

You can fix this easily by making Cure II a natural upgrade and lowering the MP cost to 700. Regen is also super good early on but people just sleep on it.

Coming from WoW, as someone who mained a holy priest, my interpretation at first was Cure is the bread and butter heal, the one I'm supposed to use, and Cure II the more potent, costly, and longer one - the emergency heal that I should only use when things get spicy, or when freecure procs. I'm fairly certain that was the idea, but it's severely outdated, specially since they added the lilies. I don't think I've casted Cure in anything higher than Bryflox in years

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

I decided to do a bit of a venture into the new dungeons since they were reworked, and I did so - as a White Mage. It was definitely a different experience, bad tanks not withstanding, but I will say this: Once you hit Lv 50, you're in for a rude awakening.

I've begun to learn how Cure II and Cure fit into the equation for WHM a bit more despite our current end-game content emphasizing the constant use of oGCDs and HoTs, and we've certainly heard the stories about where Sylphies come from. I now know why.

Once you hit 50, you begin to see that there is VERY LITTLE DIFFERENCE between Cure II and Cure - 600 HP recovery just about. It's about what you'd expect with how they try to bait you into using Cure a lot - and they did bait me - because the potency(700 vs. 450) for just a ~600 HP difference really didn't matter as much as it would for a whole GCD. I wasn't getting my healing out as fast as I should, yet with Cure I was able to do so because Cure II isn't substantial - not until you get to Heavensward, where they award you with Lilies to use for this reason.

I find it a mundane way to shoehorn people into "Baby's First Healer". By the time you start getting towards the end of Heavensward, you start to feel your Cure IIs have a bit more impact because the stats in particular have gone up - HP in particular. You see this consistently scale throughout Stormblood up until Shadowbringers, where Cure technically isn't needed anymore. Having some consistency early on would be very helpful in the long run so as to match how players play the job later on.

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600 HP difference is an extremely awful way of looking at it

cure 2 heals 55% more than cure 1 at that level, period

MP in dungeons does not matter, you wasting more GCDs on cure 1 as opposed to using less cure 2s means you are using less offensive abilities = stuff takes longer to die, you need to heal more

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Originally Posted by Chopstix

600 HP difference is an extremely awful way of looking at it

cure 2 heals 55% more than cure 1 at that level, period

MP in dungeons does not matter, you wasting more GCDs on cure 1 as opposed to using less cure 2s means you are using less offensive abilities = stuff takes longer to die, you need to heal more

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It's one of the apparent issues that tricks people into thinking you should use Cure instead of Cure II. It doesn't heal for much more, and when the Tank isn't using their cooldowns and is getting hit multiple times, it becomes a difficulty where you're trying to keep the tank up and your Spell Speed isn't up to snuff unlike when you get halfway through HW.

I have been incredibly irritated with White Mage's misleading skill progression since Heavensward. It enforces this mentality that GCD healing is priority by the way these heals are unlocked first and little else exists to replace them for so many levels. If I could do any minor changes, the first would be to make Cure instant cast. The first heal obtained should be mobile so you can chase tanks thru early dungeons and not need swiftcast to heal them. That would be a huge quality of life adjustment and it would make sense if Cure then upgraded into Regen at level 35 while retaining it's initial 400 potency. Then it would just be an equivalent to Aspected Benefic and no one thinks that spell on Astro is overpowered. Then Cure 2 would be obvious as the spammable single target heal since overwriting the Regen multiple times seems ridiculous. This would hopefully help get rid of people falling into the free cure trait trap.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

It's one of the apparent issues that tricks people into thinking you should use Cure instead of Cure II. It doesn't heal for much more, and when the Tank isn't using their cooldowns and is getting hit multiple times, it becomes a difficulty where you're trying to keep the tank up and your Spell Speed isn't up to snuff unlike when you get halfway through HW.

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At least this isn't SB lilies where they were only generated from cure 1 and cure 2 and reduced the CD's on oGCD heals. That is also when WHM lost about half of its ARR skills and I was hoping when they said "reduce the level for getting skills" on WHM it would be more for HW skills moved into ARR to replace what has left a gaping hole there and not just reducing the level you get Lucid Dreaming on all healers.

I still miss using Blizzard 2 for aoe in low level dungeons on all healers.

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Originally Posted by Rosa_Frandlia

At least this isn't SB lilies where they were only generated from cure 1 and cure 2 and reduced the CD's on oGCD heals. That is also when WHM lost about half of its ARR skills and I was hoping when they said "reduce the level for getting skills" on WHM it would be more for HW skills moved into ARR to replace what has left a gaping hole there and not just reducing the level you get Lucid Dreaming on all healers.

I still miss using Blizzard 2 for aoe in low level dungeons on all healers.

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I had low hopes for that "reduce the level for getting skills" statement and was still disappointed. With all the skills they've removed over the years, it wouldn't even be hard to reintroduce half of them back as low level versions of some skills, like how they returned Steel Peak and Howling Fist for MNK but they couldn't even be bothered to do that.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I had low hopes for that "reduce the level for getting skills" statement and was still disappointed. With all the skills they've removed over the years, it wouldn't even be hard to reintroduce half of them back as low level versions of some skills, like how they returned Steel Peak and Howling Fist for MNK but they couldn't even be bothered to do that.

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WHM has to be the objectively most boring job to level as a new player. I, for one, would love to have at least Stoneskin now that there are tank busters as early as Copperbell, and CNJ doesn't learn a single new spell or ability between lv 12 and 30 (Stone II is just an upgrade, it doesn't count) and have it upgrade to Benison at 66

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Originally Posted by Allegor

WHM has to be the objectively most boring job to level as a new player. I, for one, would love to have at least Stoneskin now that there are tank busters as early as Copperbell, and CNJ doesn't learn a single new spell or ability between lv 12 and 30 (Stone II is just an upgrade, it doesn't count) and have it upgrade to Benison at 66

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I've been saying to rework Fluid Aura, Protect, Divine Seal and Stoneskin as low level versions of Assize, Aqua Veil, Temperance and Divine Benison. You have level 15/20/25 CNJ quests that they can just reward you with at least 3 of those skills (Fluid Aura, Protect and Stoneskin make the most thematic sense since Elemental magic and all that) and would make the leveling process actually teach you how to better utilize all your toolkit instead of trapping you in Freecure hell.

Cure II upgrades from Cure I

Let some new form of Freecure (MPless, OGCD cure 2?) proc from the Lillies. Bring up all of the lily stuff to be early, do this with every job tbh, give abilities fast and use traits to hike their potency later.

These are probably poor ideas but yeah, Free Cure needs to go regardless.

Until the healing model gets changed from pretend to real outside of late savage/ultimate this only effects early game but considering how glacial XIV doles out abilities that's a good thing too I suppose.

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I had low hopes for that "reduce the level for getting skills" statement and was still disappointed.

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They didn't even take SMN's Elemental Mastery from 86, that trait is like half the job. Made me laugh out loud.

If anything, just make a 'Freecure II' trait that makes it proc off lilies. Sure, it's relatively rare to need to cast Cure II after a lily heal, but at least it happens, specially while leveling.

It's not that Freecure itself is a bad trait - it's useful between lv 30-50, but it's pointless after that because Cure I itself becomes pointless. Even if, for whatever reason, they removed Tetra and Solace, people would still just cast Cure II, rather than spam Cure I. That's how pointless it is.

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Originally Posted by Allegor

If anything, just make a 'Freecure II' trait that makes it proc off lilies. Sure, it's relatively rare to need to cast Cure II after a lily heal, but at least it happens, specially while leveling.

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I'd rather have Freecure just give lily heals a chance to refund the lily upon cast.

I'm doing MINE content and our first venture has been to ARR extremes. Let me tell you: I usually love healing, but I wouldn't touch current level 50 WHM there with a barge-pole. I've seen our WHM suffer.

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

I'm doing MINE content and our first venture has been to ARR extremes. Let me tell you: I usually love healing, but I wouldn't touch current level 50 WHM there with a barge-pole. I've seen our WHM suffer.

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Now, maybe I'm misremembering something but I swear that ARR WHM had it easier than current level 50 WHM, simply because you have more tools to utilize that made Healing easier. While potency adjustments have happened across the board, making jobs easier by virtue of killing things quicker and taking less damage, the gameplay of WHM has absolutely suffered as time has gone on.

Back in ARR, using Stoneskin+Regen as preventative healing was more cost effective than using Cure 2 and if you really needed it, Divine Seal was on a 60s CD that buffed your heals to power thru a lot of the spike damage that ARR had. Now though? Cure 2 is all you have. If a problem cannot be solved with Cure 2 spam (assuming you have the resources to even spam it because no real MP economy sub level 50), you're just SOL. Baby's 1st healer is the absolute worst at its job starting off and it really doesn't get better until 70+, which should be a huge red flag for SE but is completely ignored because they don't balance with old content in mind.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Now, maybe I'm misremembering something but I swear that ARR WHM had it easier than current level 50 WHM, simply because you have more tools to utilize that made Healing easier. While potency adjustments have happened across the board, making jobs easier by virtue of killing things quicker and taking less damage, the gameplay of WHM has absolutely suffered as time has gone on.

Back in ARR, using Stoneskin+Regen as preventative healing was more cost effective than using Cure 2 and if you really needed it, Divine Seal was on a 60s CD that buffed your heals to power thru a lot of the spike damage that ARR had. Now though? Cure 2 is all you have. If a problem cannot be solved with Cure 2 spam (assuming you have the resources to even spam it because no real MP economy sub level 50), you're just SOL. Baby's 1st healer is the absolute worst at its job starting off and it really doesn't get better until 70+, which should be a huge red flag for SE but is completely ignored because they don't balance with old content in mind.

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whm also had virus which meant it could help with mitigating attacks instead of being at the mercy of the entire party doing their job right.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

whm also had virus which meant it could help with mitigating attacks instead of being at the mercy of the entire party doing their job right.

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And Eye for an Eye for Mitigation but I just wanted to name skills native to WHM rather than Cross class skills. Still, it just goes to show how neglected Healers are at low levels considering how many old, useful skills were removed and the backloading of skills just makes running MINE content that much more of a chore.