Feedback: White Mage (7.05) Needs Some Major Love

After holding out hope that some adjustments would be made to bring the White Mage job more in-line with its fellow “Pure Healer” counterpart Astrologian and seeing barely any changes made with the release of the Savage fights, and hearing that there was an announcement that changes will be made to add more job individuality starting with patch 7.2, I’d like to type out my thoughts on the current state of the White Mage (WHM) job and more specifically:

The new additions to its kit in Dawntrail
Where WHM stands compared to its counterparts
A wish list of potential changes and fixes

Overall, with the addition of new tools gained in Dawntrail, the White Mage job feels comfortable to play; however, when comparing the job to its healer counterparts the current iteration of the WHM kit feels uninspired and a little sparse. As someone who has mained WHM, I can’t help but feel that White Mage in its current form could do with some serious love.

As there are a lot of ideas put to paper, I've compiled my thoughts on a published doc, which is linked here

Solid suggestions.

The oGCD EukFlatus (allowing for next Cure II, then later Medica, to be an instant and free cast and later generate a Blood Lily) is one I've been fond of since Shadowbringers launch, maybe or maybe not coupled with a 20s recharge Thin Air (consumption charges a Blood Lily no matter what, but just reduces next spell's cast time by 2.5s and 1k MP, therefore being usable on any casted spell, eventually holding up to 3 charges).

Not sure I agree that there's any advantage to pushing WHM further towards a pure healer, nor what a more "unique" means of mitigation would do for that, especially since every healer has a %DR and healing for a % of recent taken damage is already very much AST's thing via Macrocosmos.

Yeah those are fair points! I think I was trying to think of ways of preserving more unique ways of preserve a WHM "identity" while still allowing for WHM to have its own tools, since it seems that the return of job individuality is on the horizon.

I think I disagree with some points, for example you compare Cure 2 and Afflatus Solace and in general casted heals verses instant lilies — you make the point that you'd never use Cure 2 over Solace but I think that's the entire point. Cure 2 is a last resort and is essential because it will always be available unlike Solace which requires a lily. The point of Cure 2 isn't that you need to decide when to use it verses a lily but instead it is there in-case you have no other options.

You also say if a raidwide happens at the start of an encounter a White Mage "must" sacrifice a GCD when it's not entirely true. We have a plethora of oGCD options such as our bubble to choose from and not only that, it doesn't matter if the raidwide happens within 20 seconds, it matters if the next instance of damage happens within 20 seconds, otherwise we still have plenty of time to heal. Decent healers will know that the party being low is irrelevant if there is no incoming damage for a while. You argue against the homogenization of healers but most relevant content where damage hits hard will always have two healers, there's no reason White Mage specifically needs to be able to Lily heal the first raidwide if other jobs have the utility to do it.

A lot of this document seems to speak of the White Mage movement, but I don't see how it is an issue. Any decent White Mage who is doing content that they know is going to easily manage their resources to prepare for movement and keep uptime if required, White Mage already had plenty of movement capability and then they added Glare IV which gave us even more. Having to plan and think about how you use your kit for movement is part of the game, it doesn't need to be easier. Not to mention, no content in the entire game relies on this kind of movement optimization for White Mage so it only becomes relevant in parsing or really pushing for high optimization (typically for parsing) - but players who're at this level aren't going to have any issue with what movement we do have. Their main issue will be losing downtime if their allies make mistakes.

- I think the hilariously weird thing about Presence of Mind is that despite it exclusively being used as a DPS cool-down because of Glare IV, SE genuinely sees it as a ‘tool that can be used to increase healing’ too. Hence why it still hasn’t fallen in line with other ‘120-cycle damage buffs’. Which makes locking Glare IV behind it make very little sense lol.

- Isn’t that how skills like Divine Caress are supposed to work though? As far as I’m aware every skill in the game that’s ’available after using another skill’ has the exact same 30-second window in which it can be used. Like Lux Solaris or Star Prism. People seem mostly happy with the idea of ‘find the best time to use it yourself or lose the value by your own fault’. As for having the shield itself break, isn’t it kind of on the player to know when best to apply it so it does break? Shields are fast enough to apply that you can usually throw it up while the enemy is casting their AoE, so you can essentially use it reactively if you don’t know what’s coming next.


- For Lilies I don’t see why they could do something like Astrologian/Pictomancer where either you start with 3 when combat begins like cards, or you get an instant button that grants 1-3
Lilies when used outside of combat? That way you wouldn’t have the situation where an AoE is coming but you have no lilies (though as mentioned above I’ve never had a problem with this situation thanks to Asylum+Assize)

- Seraphism being an overtly ‘White Mage’ aesthetic ability and effect is definitely something I agree with. Isn’t it hilarious that they’re not satisfied with homogenising gameplay anymore; now they want to homogenise literal Job identity

- I think they take issue with Protraction-type skills as an AoE because of how it scales with job/gear. Bard used to have this capability (Stormblood’s Troubadour while Ballad was up I think) but it was swiftly removed and replaced with the generic ‘10% damage down’

- Astrologian does definitely have more options for oGCD mitigation/regen, but I think that’s been compounded this expansion by Bole/Spire/Ewer. Which, many Astrologians have lots of issues with, particularly the fact they’re (mostly) clones of pre-existing skill effects. I feel like in an ideal world they’d do something unique anyway, rather than just ‘what it already does but now even more’ lol, and then it wouldn’t take away from White Mage as much’.

Those are just my thoughts anyway

-They aren't so far off in that line of thinking lol. I've definitely used a PoM during prog to get those dead bodies up in a pinch! But yeah, functionally, it does serve more as a dps tool, so it is a little sad that it hasn't seen any adjustments to its buff length. And Glare IV is very cool! I wish I could use it more than 3 times every 2 minutes!

-And yeah, I do see the point that limitations can serve to challenge the player and to help them figure out timings and what not. But generally, I still wish the button weren't so hamstringed by its limitations. It's easy enough to adjust its usage, but it could also just be designed form the get go to not having such limitations in place. I don't think every level 100 capstone ability needed to be gated as a follow up to a 2 minute cooldown. I'd argue that it would be completely fine to uncouple the skill or to simply just give the WHM another mitigation tool.

-I agree. It seems strange that all the other healers get immediate access to their job resources while WHM has to wait for 20 seconds to pass. That being said, it isn't a "real" issue per say, but does feel like a rather arbitrary limitation placed on WHM by the devs.

-Seraphism T-T is very cool. We should trade out Divine Caress for Seraphism. I think it's a fair trade that SCH players would agree to (maybe not actually).

-That makes a lot of sense actually T-T Please Squeenix let us have cool things

-And yes, I definitely agree that a lot of this newfound oGCD power tends to come from its new card system. Maybe if it sticks around, we'd have more ground to argue for more tools being gifted to WHM. That being said, with AST facing a rework every expansion, I'm not betting on that.

That's okay to disagree! I really just wanted to open the floor to discussing the current state of WHM. I think generally, yes, a player would never use Cure 2 over Afflatus Solace. It's there as a healing option that can be used when you run out of lilies during prog or if you've had to expend your resources. That being said, I don't think the Lily heals necessarily warrant their own buttons. They are always the pick over their non-Lily counterparts, and I'd rather the hotbar real estate be utilized for the addition of newer tools.

You bring up a good point that your cohealer can heal through the opening raidwide damage, and for the most part, I agree that Aslyum and an adjusted Assize can easily top off the party. I think I'd still like to have the option however of using a Lily heal. It's true that being low is irrelevant if there's no incoming damage, but that is overly reliant on your team members having clean runs where they don't take extra instances of damage. Either way, I think you bring up valid points of why it's not necessary to neccesitate a change here, but I believe it could be a nice QoL change to have access to a Lily earlier in a pull.

And yeah! I brought up movement mostly to emphasize how it's a strength of WHM's, and why one would want to play WHM over AST. However, my main issue isn't that WHM doesn't have movement, but more so that AST's movement tools seem to completely make irrelevant required movement for mechanics. Part of the fun of playing WHM is understanding when you can move and what resources you can slot into the cadence of the fight to position yourself for heals and raid mechanics. That being said, if WHM's unique niche as a progging healer were its comfort due to instant cast heals and mobility, it seems to have had its own standout strengths diminshed in the most recent patch. As far as I know, many world first race groups didn't bring a WHM, even when progging. And having played AST recently, the class is more mobile than it's been in its EW iteration. So what niche does WHM continue to occupy in its current form? What reasons would a group looking at composition strategically would compel them to bring a WHM?

I would just like for WHM to have a horse in the race, rather than being relegated to "worst healer" status. Not that I'm saying that it is! Just saying that that seems to be the general perception of the job and I don't fault people for thinking so!

Although you can see your edits, others cannot — so no need to delete and repost if you want to change things. People wont see what you changed anyway. Just a tip in-case that's why you did it, it'll save you from having to delete and repost in the future.

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Originally Posted by Pyth

. So what niche does WHM continue to occupy in its current form? What reasons would a group looking at composition strategically would compel them to bring a WHM?

I would just like for WHM to have a horse in the race, rather than being relegated to "worst healer" status. Not that I'm saying that it is! Just saying that that seems to be the general perception of the job and I don't fault people for thinking so!

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To me I think this is the biggest problem for White Mage (the lack of unique niche for itself). Like, when you put aside ‘healing’, there’s nothing left for it whatsoever.

Like, Astrologian has its cards, Scholar has its utility buffs, Sage has its dps and some utility. But once the healing is done White Mage doesn’t really have anything unique or interesting to it in the way the others do besides ‘big damage after 3 heals’, which is already contingent upon you having to heal those 3 different times lol

Thank you! I am suffering a debuff from trying to figure out how the forum posts work LOL

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Originally Posted by Connor

To me I think this is the biggest problem for White Mage (the lack of unique niche for itself). Like, when you put aside ‘healing’, there’s nothing left for it whatsoever.

Like, Astrologian has its cards, Scholar has its utility buffs, Sage has its dps and some utility. But once the healing is done White Mage doesn’t really have anything unique or interesting to it in the way the others do besides ‘big damage after 3 heals’, which is already contingent upon you having to heal those 3 different times lol

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Exactly! I love WHM and I love the idea that you are rewarded for healing on the GCD with a return on damage. But it is really difficult to see a reason outside of "you like WHM" to continue playing it once your static / raid group has seen enrange. I'm not sure what could neccessarily be added to WHM to make it have a unique niche, but it would add a lot more longevity to the job if it did have something unique it could bring. IDK if anyone here plays Honkai Star Rail, but a friend of mine suggested a buffing ability similar to Robin. Where a flat instance of damage is inflicted after a target does damage. It's definitely interesting but I'm not sure how that would work with 14's current systems.

WHM should be hard casting healer who can heal party

imagine BLM but for healers

SHB was the best WHM iteration because how they double down on DPS and hard casting

still ShB WHM is the best healer I ever played

if they add each expansion 50% dps and 50% healing the job will be almost perfect, but no they turn my boy to potion job

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Originally Posted by Tunda

WHM should be hard casting healer who can heal party

imagine BLM but for healers

SHB was the best WHM iteration because how they double down on DPS and hard casting

still ShB WHM is the best healer I ever played

if they add each expansion 50% dps and 50% healing the job will be almost perfect, but no they turn my boy to potion job

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I would certainly not complain about having more DPS options as a WHM player. Heal big and Hit Hard is the motto WHM should stick with!

It's always neat to see someone else's perspective on how to make a job feel better to play as a game dev nerd. I personally don't agree with leaning further into the pure healer dichotomy as it's a paradigm that should be destroyed because it forces a meta on the player base and if they want to introduce a 5th healer, are they gonna accept the imbalance of options in their paradigm?

My personal biggest frustration with XIV's iteration of WHM is that it's the most vapid and creatively sterile interpretation of the job in a mechanical sense (not visually), across the entire series. I even made a video like 2.5 years back about improving the job's baseline design (I don't recommend watching it, I don't even agree with quite a few choices in it now) and a little history video on the job from games 1-10 that shows how XIV uses NOTHING truly unique about WHM. Granted, my conspiracy theory is that they keep WHM in such a painfully binary state now because it has such a bloated playerbase due to the game funneling newbies into it from level 1 and they want other healers to be played more.

I was also talking to my partner because we plan to do hobby game dev together in the future and are inspired by the successes and (growing) failures of XIV's job design for a humble little action RPG we want to make in the far future. And it led to a discussion on tank and healer design and thinking in terms of "how do you make wanting to take / heal damage engaging?" Granted what we want to do is a significant deviation from the very linear nature of XIV's combat, but I think it's an important question the devs should be seriously considering instead of blindly designing systems around RPG obligations.

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Originally Posted by Sarixis

It's always neat to see someone else's perspective on how to make a job feel better to play as a game dev nerd. I personally don't agree with leaning further into the pure healer dichotomy as it's a paradigm that should be destroyed because it forces a meta on the player base and if they want to introduce a 5th healer, are they gonna accept the imbalance of options in their paradigm?

My personal biggest frustration with XIV's iteration of WHM is that it's the most vapid and creatively sterile interpretation of the job in a mechanically (not visually), across the entire series. I even made a video like 2.5 years back about improving the job's baseline design (I don't recommend watching it, I don't even agree with quite a few choices in it now) and a little history video on the job from games 1-10 that shows how XIV uses NOTHING truly unique about WHM. Granted, my conspiracy theory is that they keep WHM in such a painfully binary state now because it has such a bloated playerbase due to the game funneling newbies into it from level 1 and they want other healers to be played more.

I was also talking to my partner because we plan to do hobby game dev together in the future and are inspired by the successes and (growing) failures of XIV's job design for a humble little action RPG we want to make in the far future. And it led to a discussion on tank and healer design and thinking in terms of "how do you make wanting to take / heal damage engaging?" Granted what we want to do is a significant deviation from the very linear nature of XIV's combat, but I think it's an important question the devs should be seriously considering instead of blindly designing systems around RPG obligations.

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Yeah, I love seeing what people have to say about how WHM has been designed. I do think you bring up a really good point that as soon as another healer needs to be added, the pure vs shield healer dichotomy just collapses. It does feel that Square Enix is encouraging more all healers to have access to more mits and larger heals across the board. So perhaps they're already planning on addressing the issue in 8.0? Either way, we need some love shown our way

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Originally Posted by Pyth

Yeah, I love seeing what people have to say about how WHM has been designed. I do think you bring up a really good point that as soon as another healer needs to be added, the pure vs shield healer dichotomy just collapses. It does feel that Square Enix is encouraging more all healers to have access to more mits and larger heals across the board. So perhaps they're already planning on addressing the issue in 8.0? Either way, we need some love shown our way

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Here's to hoping things get better, but given they just removed the variance on Viper, a job that came out this expansion, I'm not particularly optimistic about escaping this race to the bottom in 8.0. I'd love if I was proven wrong, and while the overall combat in Dawntrail is a plus, job design hasn't shown signs of improving. Maybe I'm still salty at how not even Black Mage is safe and got massacred. At least I have a creative outlet in my own game project so I don't feel shackled to the blunders of XIV. The fundamental concepts for how a healer would work are something I'm happy with in a very KISS (Keep It Simple Silly) design method so far.

The suggestion to expand on SCH Protraction effect sounds like a great idea for WHM. It allows the WHM to use more big and pure heals while granting a higher max HP pool to help the players survive burst hits better. Probably the main concern this might have is it could make DRKs a lot more sturdy with their TBN shields scaling from 25% of their max HP. Although that is another talking point since the DRK tanks probably need some reworks to their mechs anyways.

A few more damage abilities would be nice. It would require consolidating some spells together. Cure 1 with Cure 2 would be a simple one. Medica with Cure 3 maybe if they altered Cure 3 to be more better with casuals? I discussed with another savage healer a while ago and it came down to either changing the range to be 10 yalm on targeting with a 20 yalm radius or maybe cut the mana cost in half if the Medica 2 / 3 HoT is present on you. As for the person I was discussing with, they actually went the full mile with some suggestions too. This looks like a thread they made and it has the elemental ideas I remember us talking about. The suggestions sound like it is asking for a lot of buttons, but we need to remember that one spell slot can cram multiple upgraded spell versions kind of like what they did with a lot of the Dawntrail spell upgrades.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...93#post6463293

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Originally Posted by Sarixis

Here's to hoping things get better, but given they just removed the variance on Viper, a job that came out this expansion, I'm not particularly optimistic about escaping this race to the bottom in 8.0. I'd love if I was proven wrong, and while the overall combat in Dawntrail is a plus, job design hasn't shown signs of improving. Maybe I'm still salty at how not even Black Mage is safe and got massacred. At least I have a creative outlet in my own game project so I don't feel shackled to the blunders of XIV. The fundamental concepts for how a healer would work are something I'm happy with in a very KISS (Keep It Simple Silly) design method so far.

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Yeah, it's true... their words don't necessarily seem to be aligning with their current actions. I have a small inkling of hope that we might see something more on an 7.X patch since a friend has told me that they tend to do avoid making larger changes on .05 patches. I do think your skepticism is warranted, especially when looking Black Mage and the new Viper changes. :cry: But sounds like your game is a really cool forum for you to flex your creative muscles! Do feel free to share any cool ideas you happen to cook whiile working on it!

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Originally Posted by Tigore

The suggestion to expand on SCH Protraction effect sounds like a great idea for WHM. It allows the WHM to use more big and pure heals while granting a higher max HP pool to help the players survive burst hits better. Probably the main concern this might have is it could make DRKs a lot more sturdy with their TBN shields scaling from 25% of their max HP. Although that is another talking point since the DRK tanks probably need some reworks to their mechs anyways.

A few more damage abilities would be nice. It would require consolidating some spells together. Cure 1 with Cure 2 would be a simple one. Medica with Cure 3 maybe if they altered Cure 3 to be more better with casuals? I discussed with another savage healer a while ago and it came down to either changing the range to be 10 yalm on targeting with a 20 yalm radius or maybe cut the mana cost in half if the Medica 2 / 3 HoT is present on you. As for the person I was discussing with, they actually went the full mile with some suggestions too. This looks like a thread they made and it has the elemental ideas I remember us talking about. The suggestions sound like it is asking for a lot of buttons, but we need to remember that one spell slot can cram multiple upgraded spell versions kind of like what they did with a lot of the Dawntrail spell upgrades.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...93#post6463293

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An earlier poster mentioned that Proctraction style effects had some weird interactions with existing systems, but if the devs can figure it out, it'd be such a cool additon! And thank you for sharing the other post! It looks like this other healer was cooking up some hot new ideas! I'll give it a read through and thank you again for sharing! You won't find me complaining about more dps buttons to press for WHM!

I think WHM could have more heal give damage mechanics like blood lily.
The regular heals can give a chance to proc sacred sight for example, including ability heals make it around a 25% chance to proc but have a lot heals have that chance.
I think WHM should also have one extra damaging spell that has a cast time and like a 40 second CD.

Besides that yeah replacing the shields with damage reduction is fine, only reason its okay on Astro is because everyone just wants old astro back and this is cope. The lily being a stance could maybe work but you could also just make the lily a strong aoe heal and normal heal on one button like cure 3 or something.
Also yeah the dash needs to be 30 seconds, it's absurd that it's not when PCT has one at 20 seconds with a free sprint too

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Originally Posted by Pyth

Yeah, it's true... their words don't necessarily seem to be aligning with their current actions. I have a small inkling of hope that we might see something more on an 7.X patch since a friend has told me that they tend to do avoid making larger changes on .05 patches. I do think your skepticism is warranted, especially when looking Black Mage and the new Viper changes. :cry: But sounds like your game is a really cool forum for you to flex your creative muscles! Do feel free to share any cool ideas you happen to cook whiile working on it!

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I have a healthy respect for the hope and optimism that people like you have for things to eventually get better.

If you want to befriend me on Discord or something like that so work in progress pre-production ideas aren't public, I'm more than happy to share! It looks like we're on the same DC to at least get the ball rolling, according to your at-a-glance profile. I have a (incredibly useless) bachelor's in game dev but it's still a passion of mine and eventually I want to pull together rag-tag team of indies together so we can make a polished demo of a single level that could start a serious crowdfunding process. But that's still a long ways away atm.

I don't have a lot of experience playing WHM at level 100, but I tried one Valigarmanda ext and I felt SO powerless sometimes compared to AST.In the several instances of close damage (raid wide, raid wide, light party stack), I can spread Earthly Star / Horoscope / Queen / Celestial Opposition (without even thinking about touching Neutral Sect and Macrocosmos)

With White Mage, I HAD to hard cast some GCDs when my Lilies where gone because I used a Solace for a single player mistake, which is less powerful than AST heals being free as they are oGCDs, without even mentioning the DPS loss of having to cast Cure III or Medicas.

So in my point of view, WHM used to be the strong single target oGCD healer with Tetra, Bene, and bits of mitig with Benison and Aquaveil. But this niche has lost its use when the tanks can now sustain themselves so well. And the party wide healing is just better in AST hands.
That leaves WHM is this spot of not being the best in anything.

Also I'm not a fan of Glare 4 being tied to Presence of Mind, I would prefer Glare 4 being a Phlegma clone as a spell on its own CD. Or a second Lily gauge being the reverse of the current one, with a DPS GCD Lily every 20 seconds, and a big party wide healing Lily after 3 uses.
Agree that the dash should be closer to a 20-30 seconds CD, and Presence of Mind should be 20 seconds long or a 60 seconds CD. I would also untie Temperance and the party shield as two separate mitigation tools.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

I think WHM could have more heal give damage mechanics like blood lily.
The regular heals can give a chance to proc sacred sight for example, including ability heals make it around a 25% chance to proc but have a lot heals have that chance.
I think WHM should also have one extra damaging spell that has a cast time and like a 40 second CD.

Besides that yeah replacing the shields with damage reduction is fine, only reason its okay on Astro is because everyone just wants old astro back and this is cope. The lily being a stance could maybe work but you could also just make the lily a strong aoe heal and normal heal on one button like cure 3 or something.
Also yeah the dash needs to be 30 seconds, it's absurd that it's not when PCT has one at 20 seconds with a free sprint too

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Yes, more damage would be so nice! I think Sacred Sight proccing off of heals would be such a cool and flavorful add. And you're so right, the WHM dash really does pale when you look at equivalent abilities.

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Originally Posted by Sarixis

I have a healthy respect for the hope and optimism that people like you have for things to eventually get better.

If you want to befriend me on Discord or something like that so work in progress pre-production ideas aren't public, I'm more than happy to share! It looks like we're on the same DC to at least get the ball rolling, according to your at-a-glance profile. I have a (incredibly useless) bachelor's in game dev but it's still a passion of mine and eventually I want to pull together rag-tag team of indies together so we can make a polished demo of a single level that could start a serious crowdfunding process. But that's still a long ways away atm.

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Haha I hope in this case it is optimism and not just naivete! I'd love to add you on Discord! Unsure on how we'd want to go about the process but open to anything!

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Originally Posted by Mansion

I don't have a lot of experience playing WHM at level 100, but I tried one Valigarmanda ext and I felt SO powerless sometimes compared to AST.In the several instances of close damage (raid wide, raid wide, light party stack), I can spread Earthly Star / Horoscope / Queen / Celestial Opposition (without even thinking about touching Neutral Sect and Macrocosmos)

With White Mage, I HAD to hard cast some GCDs when my Lilies where gone because I used a Solace for a single player mistake, which is less powerful than AST heals being free as they are oGCDs, without even mentioning the DPS loss of having to cast Cure III or Medicas.

So in my point of view, WHM used to be the strong single target oGCD healer with Tetra, Bene, and bits of mitig with Benison and Aquaveil. But this niche has lost its use when the tanks can now sustain themselves so well. And the party wide healing is just better in AST hands.
That leaves WHM is this spot of not being the best in anything.

Also I'm not a fan of Glare 4 being tied to Presence of Mind, I would prefer Glare 4 being a Phlegma clone as a spell on its own CD. Or a second Lily gauge being the reverse of the current one, with a DPS GCD Lily every 20 seconds, and a big party wide healing Lily after 3 uses.
Agree that the dash should be closer to a 20-30 seconds CD, and Presence of Mind should be 20 seconds long or a 60 seconds CD. I would also untie Temperance and the party shield as two separate mitigation tools.

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This is a really big one for me as well! Playing AST in Valigarmanda, I was shocked at just how many tools I had access to. It felt nigh endless. And with the new interation of Lightspeed, much of the difficulty of mechanics seemed to fly out the window as well. I'm a big fan of all the changes that you've menionted and I do hope that WHM is able to carve out a niche for itself. Hopefully sooner than later.

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Originally Posted by Pyth

Haha I hope in this case it is optimism and not just naivete! I'd love to add you on Discord! Unsure on how we'd want to go about the process but open to anything!

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I use the same name as on here, Discord, and in game, and if you youtube search my tiny little channel of the same name, you can match my avatar there with my Discord profile pic for confirmation.

If you want a better comparison for Aetherial Shift than En Avant, have a look at Smudge, which like Aetherial Shift was also released in Dawntrail.

Smudge: 15 yalm forward dash, 5 seconds of sprint per use, 20 second recast.
Aetherial Shift: 15 yalm forward dash, 60 second recast.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

If you want a better comparison for Aetherial Shift than En Avant, have a look at Smudge, which like Aetherial Shift was also released in Dawntrail.

Smudge: 15 yalm forward dash, 5 seconds of sprint per use, 20 second recast.
Aetherial Shift: 15 yalm forward dash, 60 second recast.

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Oh this is egregious. Pitco getting the favorite child treatment rn. I understand not giving WHM a sprint but mayhaps the recast time can be closer.

I think Aetherial Shift’s cool-down wouldn’t be so bad if it got two charges. If not that then I’d say a 30s cool-down would feel much more appropriate.

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Originally Posted by Connor

I think Aetherial Shift’s cool-down wouldn’t be so bad if it got two charges. If not that then I’d say a 30s cool-down would feel much more appropriate.

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Yeah I agree. The dash itself is nice in a vacuum, but when compared to other comparable movement abilities, it loses a bit of its sparkle. Especially when AST gets 2 charges of Lightspeed.

I can't believe I totally forgot to put this in the greater doc and conversation, but DO SOMETHING WITH THE FREECURE TRAIT. GET RID OF IT REPLACE IT. ANYTHING

Cure 1 now procs a free medica 3 which is also instant cast

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Originally Posted by Pyth

I can't believe I totally forgot to put this in the greater doc and conversation, but DO SOMETHING WITH THE FREECURE TRAIT. GET RID OF IT REPLACE IT. ANYTHING

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I mean, it's typically excessive, but any problem with Freecure is almost purely to do with the game's (lack of) learning support, rather than the (usually useless) perk itself.

It still increases the mana-efficiency of Cure I greatly, which can actually be useful after having just been raised with 50s left until your next Lucid Dreaming.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I mean, it's typically excessive, but any problem with Freecure is almost purely to do with the game's (lack of) learning support, rather than the (usually useless) perk itself.

It still increases the mana-efficiency of Cure I greatly, which can actually be useful after having just been raised with 50s left until your next Lucid Dreaming.

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I think that the problem with Freecure is that mana-efficiency is niche in the current state of the game; Piety is actively avoided as much as humanly possible because of how little impact it has in gameplay and the plethora of oGCDs, Lilies and tools to manage MP all severely limit the need for having mana-efficient options. That isn't to say that those niche moments don't happen but then, there's also the situational awareness of the moment. If I get raised and I have more than 2 people that need to be healed, Cure 1 is less Mana-Efficient than using Medica 1 UNLESS Freecure procs but that's one of the many flaws of Freecure, it's a proc so it's not even reliable. Then, there's also the option of Regen being available that further muddy the waters for freecure.

So, in order for Freecure to be mana-efficient enough to warrant usage, I would've needed to be MP starved in some way to bring me down to dangerously low MP, with all my free oGCDs and MP tools to be on CD (or unavailable due to level synch), with at most 1-2 party members needing to be healed with damage coming in soon enough that Regen would not suffice and PRAY that I proc freecure after the first attempt. I would need to be in Coils at MINE for that to be even remotely possible but at level 100? I think I'd have a better chance at being struck by lightning.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

with 1-2 party members needing to be healed with damage coming in soon enough that Regen would not suffice and PRAY that I proc freecure after the first attempt. I would need to be in Coils at MINE for that to be even remotely possible but at level 100? I think I'd have a better chance at being struck by lightning.

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Or, in excess of what Regen can do in time. You can't exactly stack it.

My point is, though, if you concern yourself only with removing effects a new player may overestimate the usefulness of, you both lose salient pointers towards the game's larger health and risk progressively trimming away would-be gameplay-additive levers.

Cure I upgrading directly into Cure II, awkward MP cost increase or no, isn't such a loss in itself, but consider: In most content, Cure II is nearly as much a trap as Cure I, as Medica III heals for 40% more on each target for the same MP cost. And there's virtually no outgoing damage strong enough to require Medica that shouldn't just be handled by Panhaima/Lilybell/etc. So then we're down to AoE Regen with a starting tick and a rare single-target Regen if that person is really taking up to some 133% more damage than everyone else.

Or, we could revise the MP- or total-healing efficiencies of AoEs and the blatant excess of MP and perhaps revise Freecure to a trait whereby each healing spell reduces the costs of the options more expensive than it, situating WHM as the healer with the highest ceiling of at-cost heals possible... should such be necessary. Etc., etc.

Yeah, although if we had serious incoming damage on the group both in dungeons and in raids, I could see a need for a GCD single target and AoE heal that isn't bound to be a regen-type. Sure, still no reason to have Cure 1 / Benefic 1. Unless, of course, they increase the proc chance to 100%. Then, in a situation where there is a need for a spammable GCD heal in the first place, I could also see the need for a weaker one that buffs the next bigger one.

But eh, unless we're getting such content, this is all meaningless therorizing anyways.

I still havn't leveled my WHM as of yet but...

AST and WHM have barely changed healing wise.
Unless I missed something,

They both got a mitigation at lv 100. One being -10% for 15s and one being a big AoE shield both tied to their 2min CD. As a bonus AST is blinded for 2s upon using its skill.
Both got an extra ST ogcd charge, WHM being imp the clear winner here. Going from 1 ->2 charges has much more of an impact than 2 -> 3, all in all, AST gameplay didn't change much here while WHM can now roll its tetra.

AST got a few more goodies through the card system, most notably Bole+Ewer and garanteed the Lady which can be planned around. However, we've had well over 9000 post of people complaining those cards were and are still useless so unless we've gone full 180°, that can't be the sole reason why 7.0 compared to 6.0 WHM feels lacking.

So... what is it that makes WHM so "bad" atm compared to AST, considering both job healing wise didn't change when it comes to AoE healing which is 90% of our healing.

And when it comes to downtime, AST having card and not WHM sounds odd to me... That has always been the case and litterally the reason why so many WHM would play WHM instead of AST... If that wasn't a concern 3 month ago, why now? Nothing has changed for WHM and instead AST got less to do.

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

I still havn't leveled my WHM as of yet but...

AST and WHM have barely changed healing wise.
Unless I missed something,

They both got a mitigation at lv 100. One being -10% for 15s and one being a big AoE shield both tied to their 2min CD. As a bonus AST is blinded for 2s upon using its skill.
Both got an extra ST ogcd charge, WHM being imp the clear winner here. Going from 1 ->2 charges has much more of an impact than 2 -> 3, all in all, AST gameplay didn't change much here while WHM can now roll its tetra.

AST got a few more goodies through the card system, most notably Bole+Ewer and garanteed the Lady which can be planned around. However, we've had well over 9000 post of people complaining those cards were and are still useless so unless we've gone full 180°, that can't be the sole reason why 7.0 compared to 6.0 WHM feels lacking.

So... what is it that makes WHM so "bad" atm compared to AST, considering both job healing wise didn't change when it comes to AoE healing which is 90% of our healing.

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1) AST is now 10-15% stronger than WHM on damage at all percentiles, this disparity will grow over the course of the expansion
2) AST is still a far better mitigator because it has a 1 minute mitigation while WHM has two wonky 2 minute mitigations
3) WHM is still the weakest healer on HPS despite being the “raw healer”
4) besides damage AST now synergies even better with its strongest partner- SCH because of arrow

WHM just continues to completely lack any sort of niche and just exists in a weird limbo where it brings nothing to the raid, it’s just a void

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

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I agree, but what i don't understand is, all of your answer are about "whm is *still*".

Yet, apparently everything was fine in 6.0 since AST was the least played job. So if WHM *still* has the same issue as 6.0, why is it a problem now and not before?

i don't really see why you'd consider WHM to be lacking a niche... Instant gcd heal dps neutral, lilly basically, sounds like a good niche. We agree "pure overpowered raw healing" wouldn't be a good niche as its biggest weakness is the lack of mitigation.... What would you like it to be? I find lillies (dps neutral healing) to be a decent niche.

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

I agree, but what i don't understand is, all of your answer are about "whm is *still*".

Yet, apparently everything was fine in 6.0 since AST was the least played job. So if WHM *still* has the same issue as 6.0, why is it a problem now and not before?

i don't really see why you'd consider WHM to be lacking a niche... Instant gcd heal dps neutral, lilly basically, sounds like a good niche. We agree "pure overpowered raw healing" wouldn't be a good niche as its biggest weakness is the lack of mitigation.... What would you like it to be? I find lillies (dps neutral healing) to be a decent niche.

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It was a problem in 6.0, WHM has been in this weird “void” of a niche since they fixed the horrid day one balancing of 5.0 SCH and AST, arguably it was even worse in the early patches of 6.0 than it is now because it didn’t even have neutral lilys. AST wasn’t well played in 6.0 because people didn’t like getting carpal tunnel at 25 playing a job for a 5% damage bonus

“Healing” isn’t a niche, all the healers can heal upfront, there is no benefit to having your niche be “I can heal RIGHT NOW” when we know exactly when the damage comes out anyway

I haven’t thought much about an actual niche for WHM since it lost its niche in 5.0. Before that WHM was the dominant AOE healing as SCH struggled in AOE and WST was more like an “off healer”. Maybe it’s a healer who could gain more benefits the less overhealing it does. That would create interesting tension with lily’s which you have to spend because they are a DPS gain, trying to avoid overhealing while still spending all your lily’s sounds interesting to me but I’ve also put almost no proper thought into this so that’s just a spitball