3.0 Adjustments to Existing Actions for WHM & SCH

[iro43]

That Presence of Mind nerf is absolutely ridiculous. They really expect us to accept a 2 and a half minute cooldown for 20% increased spell speed for only 15 seconds? Compare that to Fey Glow which had a minute cooldown, and increased spell speed for 30% for 30 seconds. I know, SS has been buffed and affects hots, this buff will now increase the potency of regen, medica II, etc., but WE DON'T NEED IT. We don't need a divine seal for our hots, we have divine seal for that. PoM used to be an incredible and unique skill, there's nothing else in the game that allows you to so drastically affect your GCD, with enough spell speed stacked you could even hit the cap of 1.5 GCD. That is fun and makes WHM unique, and it was balanced by the long cooldown, short length, and mana drain, and we're going to trade that in for a divine seal I can only use on my hots? No thanks.

Change Presence of Mind to increase action speed and not affect spell speed so it isn't OP with hots, just like fey wind.

[AdamFyi]

I don't particularly like the SS nerf, but I think we'll have to wait and see. It could be that the (Total HP)/(Heal capability per second) ratio is changing, which could make an 18% SS completely ridiculous (or still not enough, dunno). Either way, I'll reserve final judgement until level 60 dungeons and raids.

Considering that an i170 DRK has approximately 16,000 HP, the post-expansion Stoneskin will only mitigate about ~1,600 damage whereas the pre-expansion Stoneskin would mitigate around ~2,880 damage. The main problem with this comes to boss cleaves where the tank will take high damage to the face. Mitigation is nice - especially when it comes to your co-healer dying and you're left to solo heal while they recover. You can't heal up the tank if he dies. I'm kind of disappointed that they nerfed it, but I'll wait to try out the new skills before coming to conclusions.

Edit:

An interesting note; if we go by our current global tick system of 3 seconds, Asylum (The AoE regen) has a total of 800 potency. Adding Regen to the mix, increases the total to 1850 potency once both effects end. One tick would heal up a total of 250 potency when both are up. With that aside, it would be very interesting to see how this would change with the changes to the Spell Speed function.

[Ghishlain]

At a glance, I'm personally not too happy with the WHM changes. Outside of Assize, it feels... these changes are really basic. The nerf to Holy felt unneeded though having all these new abilities that aren't tied to MP and provide potent effects is really nice. I like the idea of a 2.5s cast time Stoneskin, but the lose of the 8% eHP is painful. However, with three DoTs and two HoTs going off all the time, I will see how they play out with the SpS changes. Also, these tools may be perfect with how the current raid mechanics are built too. Time will tell. I also hope that Aero III's 2y Radius is a typo >>;

On the other side of the coin, I love all the changes to SCH. SCH was designed about being tactical with the use of their abilities and skills and all these different abilities and their nuances work well for that theme. Broil is directly weaker when compared to their equivalent of Stone II due to MP cost though SCHs weren't know to have much MP issues, so it may work out well for what they're aiming for.

I get the overall feeling that S-E is planning to make the Alex fights much more healing intensive than Coil. Like, I don't expect more tank busters but I expected the raid damage to be much higher and more frequent than before.

[Seraphyna]

Wow.. SE really hates White Mage.

Nerfed Stoneskin - Damage absorb from 18% HP to 10% HP
Nerfed Protect/ Proshell given to all
Nerfed Holy
No change to Saints.


Only buffs to Sch and it looks like Ast will be taking over for Whm.

Thanks SE! Guess I'll be choosing a new main.

[Vlady]

That Presence of Mind nerf is absolutely ridiculous. They really expect us to accept a 2 and a half minute cooldown for 20% increased spell speed for only 15 seconds? Compare that to Fey Glow which had a minute cooldown, and increased spell speed for 30% for 30 seconds. I know, SS has been buffed and affects hots, this buff will now increase the potency of regen, medica II, etc., but WE DON'T NEED IT. We don't need a divine seal for our hots, we have divine seal for that. PoM used to be an incredible and unique skill, there's nothing else in the game that allows you to so drastically affect your GCD, with enough spell speed stacked you could even hit the cap of 1.5 GCD. That is fun and makes WHM unique, and it was balanced by the long cooldown, short length, and mana drain, and we're going to trade that in for a divine seal I can only use on my hots? No thanks.

Change Presence of Mind to increase action speed and not affect spell speed so it isn't OP with hots, just like fey wind.

I would not put much faith into SE right now in regards to white mage. They have been in need of major buffs and a massive retooling since introducing other healing jobs to compare how badly and weak the white mage is right now. Maybe when they see white mage participation drop to levels even lower then summoners pre 3.0 they will finally do something about it. But until then Scholar and now Astrologian are miles ahead of white mage in the marathon of job viability.

This is not even touching the subject of how many nerfs the white mage is getting in Heavensward and how useless the most unique parts of their skill set is. A new aoe regen shield bubble and regen need to be reworked.

[SovereignAegis]

White mages in this thread cannot be serious.

You still have the single highest burst healing in the entire game, which is absolutely and utterly invaluable in lategame raids. Scholars do not have that same burst healing ability at all. Medica is an incredibly powerful skill. Also Scholar's 25% burst healing was removed meaning they can't even burst heal tanks anymore.

[GideonHighmourn]

We haven't even seen how the new skills and adjustments work with the new content and mechanics. WHM DPS rotation is getting shaken up with the changes to Holy and addition of Aero 3 and Stone 3; however, their DPS rotation needed some adjusting. PoM is also now an increase to HoTs (Regen, Medica II, Asylum, Assize (?)) which gives it some additional utility aside from just increasing casting speed/lowering GCDs. Additionally, Tetragrammaton gives WHM some much-needed "snap" healing power.

Lustrate needed adjustments; honestly, it was a little OP. It negated many mechanics, and allowed SCH to stay in Cleric's Stance through the majority of dungeon content. I see it as a needed adjustment, and a considerable buff to HPS on DPS.

Honestly, I'm happy to see some of the changes coming for WHM and SCH alike. Will they require adjustment to play style? Absolutely.

Should we have expected any less? No. Yoshi-P even stated that pretty much everyone should expect to change rotations in 3.0.

[Risvertasashi]

I would contend that lustrate is more powerful now. It was always outdone by Cure II (before divine seal, even on tanks). 600 potency should effectively be a boost, and it still only has the 1 second off-GCD recast, so still very bursty.

Have to be out of cleric but the burst potential is there.

[Vlady]

It was more side changes then actual nerfs/buffs for scholars. 400 potency allowing it to be much more useful on dps makes it a less of a waste to use it on non tanks now. Really the dps loss is minimal leaving cleric stance and entering it again when my dots are still ticking away giving me ample time to return to cleric stance. Just losing out on a few casts of ruin 1/2 and still our pet is able to provide full strength heals while we are in cleric stance. I thought that maybe SE would also push cleric stance debuff on the pet but it did not happen. Scholars are still miles ahead of white mages.

[MXMoondoggie]

I hate when developers do this. They decide they don't really like a class so they make it really crap to play so people switch over. They are really determined to make WHM just a Healer it seems and take away their ability to AoE damage. They already nerfed them before so SCH is better and now they have AST it's like "Oh we need to make sure WHM sucks nerf it again!"