A few ideas to improve the WHM from a SCH player

[Tzain]

I hesitate to focus improvements on your absorb potential, because at that point you should just play a scholar. I do like the idea of shortening stoneskin's cast time with a trait, which would prevent scholars from benefiting as readily for using it.

I'm a bit lost on this response regarding absorb potential. Can you elaborate?

[Eriane]

Though the only place this would really be an issue is 4-man content, cos in 8-man you would have a SCH or another WHM to heal the 2nd person. And in 4-man, it's probably ok to let the dps wait for a heal (since it was probably their fault they took damage anyways). If not, you have 3 AoE heals to pick from.

The situation is not meant to be taken literally but rather to illustrate the fact that whm lack actions per gcd. It applies to more than one extra target needing a heal.

Even if you say, well there are no situations where a sch would need to adlo the tank, while embracing a dps, and throw a lustrate on the offtank (in the time it took the whm to cast cure 2), it doesn't change the reality of the situation. I can.

The whm has to either use a gcd to heal a single target or the entire raid (not counting cure 3 as the range comes into play). And therin lies the problem of threat and mana management, you have to either try to heal with cheap heals one gcd at a time or waste chunks of mp healing half the raid. Yes sch does get better mana regen and free heals but also the option of making smarter choices when less than the entire raid needs healing or various amounts of healing and/or topoff.

I think that medica 2 was changed to help address this but the burst heal isn't necessary. I actually do think that keeping it a small hot while removing the burst heal and lowering the mana cost proportionally would help.

[Avette]

I'm a bit lost on this response regarding absorb potential. Can you elaborate?

Absorption is the core mechanism of the scholar (adlo, succor, stoneskin), whereas white mages have only stoneskin at prohibitive cost and casting speed (despite its superior potency). Instead, I would prefer to focus proposed changes on the healing over time mechanisms that are central to the white mage itself. I worry that improving stoneskin too much would make you too similar to the scholar playstyle.

[Sebazy]

30 second regen would be more of an annoyance than any help.

The only buff I'd like to see to stoneskin would be a trait making it an AE whilst out of combat, purely a quality of life thing to speed up a whm's pre encounter buff process.

If we are going to throw crazy changes out there how about changing PoM to the following:

Doubles the potency and halves the remaining duration of all currently active regen effects cast by the user. 2 minute cooldown and off the GCD.

This gives us back our AE healing burst but on a cooldown so we can't just use medica II as a mindless crutch like before, it also spices up the possibilities for a little extra paced healing from regen giving us some cross ability synergy so many whms are craving.

[Eriane]

If we are going to throw crazy changes out there how about changing PoM to the following:

Doubles the potency and halves the remaining duration of all currently active regen effects cast by the user. 2 minute cooldown and off the GCD.

This gives us back our AE healing burst but on a cooldown so we can't just use medica II as a mindless crutch like before, it also spices up the possibilities for a little extra paced healing from regen giving us some cross ability synergy so many whms are craving.

If that was less than a 5 min cd I would actually like that. Its not as ridiculous as say a spell that would allow you to eat hots for a burst heal and would make POM a cd worthwhile on a st and/or raid basis.

[Aedra]

Ideas to Improve WHM?
- Make a change to battle log to show overheal so those overhealing whm out there will now know what went wrong to their MP.

And for those who want to spam medica2 for 30sec regen, for a constant background healing.. then QQing about ballad.. please read above

Thank you.

The only thing I hope for SE to make change is Benediction motion delay and result in a fail benediction.

[sharazisspecial]

Reduce regen gcd to 1 second. Turn pom into 1min cd swiftmend?

Hots are very underpowered in this game.

Even regen on everyone is meh. Its all about the timed heals or migitation. You can't time hots.

2.5 gcd regen is painful.

New medica 2 . Its making me go oom alot quicker... . Since i have to cast 2-3 heals instead of 1.

[Marcusow86]

Ideas to Improve WHM?
- Make a change to battle log to show overheal so those overhealing whm out there will now know what went wrong to their MP.

And for those who want to spam medica2 for 30sec regen, for a constant background healing.. then QQing about ballad.. please read above

Thank you.

The only thing I hope for SE to make change is Benediction motion delay and result in a fail benediction.

Agree with you somewhat, WHM whines about aggro, but they fail to realize they overheal too much due to Medica II HoT.

Every so often, after an AOE from boss, WHM uses Medica II and immediately proceed to 'top off' the team via Medica knowing very well Medica II HoT coupled with SCH Succor would have top everyone off in a couple more seconds. WHM should learn to not think they are the only healer in the team. If you can't trust other healer in your pt to do the job, go run a 4man instead. In my case, i trusted my WHM to do her job, she Medica II and i will only use Succor once that's it, we will let the Hot do the job.

If you would play a SCH you would know SCH's focus is how to control our fairy to heal the other raid member other than MT. How we position our fairy. How we avoid letting our fairy dies. WHM in the other hand focuses on how to deal with their HoT heal. Combine regen + Medica II HoT. You are actually healing TONS over a period of time, not immediate but if your party member knows what he is doing, he do not need immediate top off other than the MT.

[Lorilin]

i dont think we are here to discuss how bad a WHM or SCH can play. so no need to mention the medica II spams and everything.
my main is also WHM and i love this class very much but the mana managment is just too bad. the thing is just that its not up to me if i will be oom but it depends on my group. if everyone is dodging perfectly and just getting the unavoidable dmg then yes i as WHM usually will be fine with mana but how often is this the case? mistakes of the dps or a bad rotation of using the cds of a tank makes me easily run oom. i cannot just decide to not heal because it was their own fault. for a SCH on the other hand it is not a very big issue as he wont run oom so easily. and thats just the unfairness.
and then there are the fights like ifrit extreme where you need a lot of heal. so guess who will still have some mana in the end and who not.
i have no problem to be forced to watch my mana (already used to it from other games) but in FFIV they are just overdoing it.

[Cligue]

As a tank there has never been a fight (hm, ex, coil) where I did not want sch/whm combo. 2 whms = over cured 2 sch = wasted shields and less aoe healing. I don't think one is better, I think se made it so you would always prefer the combo. I have run into amazing whms and amazing schs, I have also run into horrible whms and horrible schs. It's all about who is playing the job.