Which stats for WHM lvl 60?

[GeekMatt]

Determination was severely nerfed in 3.0. Spell speed was hugely buffed for a job like WHM since it's a HoT-focused role. As of June, Spell Speed will ALWAYS be a better choice over Determination for WHM.

Do we have facts'n'junk on the actual changes that were made? I'm curious. My impression thus far is that SS has minimal impact and I sort of assumed there'd be tiers to hit for SS in order to get off an extra tick or 2 of out DoTs/HoTs

[Velox]

Do we have facts'n'junk on the actual changes that were made? I'm curious. My impression thus far is that SS has minimal impact and I sort of assumed there'd be tiers to hit for SS in order to get off an extra tick or 2 of out DoTs/HoTs

Spell Speed doesn't increase the number of ticks per spell (everything still ticks on server-set intervals). What it does do is increase the damage/healing potency of DoTs/HoTs by a greater magnitude than Determination (because it's limited to only the over-time effects and not the upfront effects), but a lesser magnitude than INT/MND of course. The devs explained all this in all the live letters preceding 3.0 and in the 3.0 patch notes it says somewhere about the changes made to Spell/Skill Speed (even the stat help text in-game was changed to reflect the alterations).

[Darkseth]

As a WHM I've never focused PIE, 'cuz MP isn't an issue unless you have to rez 6 people and if you have to rez 6 people either it's a fight where you can put off rezing until you have MP, or you're dead anyways.

Were you ever Raiding in Coil, when Content was new?

I don't care about Piety because its just going to be there or it isnt. A good healer will learn to manage either way, and the difference it makes is quite minimal.

This is false. Well quite... Yes, a good player will learn. But when? After a 5 minute glance into a whole new Fight? A good healer will learn this after a good bunch of clears. UNTILL then, Piety will dramatically help you not running out while progressing. And THIS is the only keypoint.
Asking 2-3 times for ballad during a Fight isn't a good MP management.
It makes a difference if "its there or isnt". At level 60 i wont Say anything yet, because its way too early.
But back at level 50, it was a HUGE difference in MP management, if you had 4400 MP, or 5500, in the long run. This makes a difference, if you have to cry out for ballad, or can manage it by yourself. And i am one of those few Whitemages, that WANT to manage their MP completely without a BRD/MCH, if possible.
And i am not talking about CT, i am talking about progression into Coil, when you are far from beeing overgeared.
Which leads me to:


Piety is the by FAR best substat for whitemage, for Progressing (like at the moment, Alexander Savage). More MP = you can heal more, because you can't possibly know in which situations you have to use which exact spells. You need time to learn, and untill that, your MP management WILL be bad.
You wont try out Cure 1, because you dont know yet what comes in 5 seconds. You use More Cure 2's, than you might need, because of one simple thing: Better be Safe than Sorry.

Every single Whitemage, who was Raiding and progressing, will have noticed that. With multiple Clears, your MP Manangement and knowledge of the Fight will be much better.
What does a few det do for you, or a few Spell speed, that give you 0.03 seconds faster heals? Nothing. But 1000-2000 MP can be a few more heals. Even more, counting in the additional Regen ticks over time.

At least that's my Experience as a Raiding WHM during the last 1 1/2 Years.

Btw, 13 000 MP is not much... Compared to level 50, that would be similar to 4200-4400 MP.
With better gear and higher item level, i'm quite sure, we will end up with 16k-17k MP in a Year.

[Selli]

Since I'm a raider and I didn't like fighting my static SCH for loot ('cause them Coil drops were mean ;c), my logic used to be "if it has crit on it, it's not for me." It worked out pretty well, lol.

However, since they changed the loot system for Alexander Savage and my WHM can actually do some fairly decent DPS, I've been looking into some different gear set ideas. Not too sure which one I'm going with yet (I have a feeling I'm gonna have full Eso before I get most of the Alexander Savage loot anyway), but my personal stat preference is Det > Pie > SpSpd > Crit.

[Velox]

Piety is the by FAR best substat for whitemage, for Progressing (like at the moment, Alexander Savage). More MP = you can heal more, because you can't possibly know in which situations you have to use which exact spells. You need time to learn, and untill that, your MP management WILL be bad.

It also means you can DPS more too. Piety will always be the best stat and every white mage should stack it. You may not use all of it for healing, but WHM DPS spells are pretty hefty MP consumers. It's pretty easy to go OOM spamming Stone III in a long fight. Even if you have excess MP for the healing portion of the fight (once you, the tanks, and the DPS know when and where the big damage is going to show up), the excess gives you plenty of wiggle room to help DPS. If you JUST stack enough Piety to heal a fight, you're not going to have anything left to DPS with. Of course if you are not one to help DPS in fights that's fine, then it would be best to load up on other stats instead of PIE. But for any WHM who wants to not only heal a fight but contribute meaningful DPS as well (without inconveniencing your BRD/MCH), you can never have too much Piety.

[Ninimo_Babamo]

Btw, 13 000 MP is not much... Compared to level 50, that would be similar to 4200-4400 MP.
With better gear and higher item level, i'm quite sure, we will end up with 16k-17k MP in a Year.

There's nothing false about it. More piety means less power behind your heals meaning more need to cast heals and thus more MP used. Even if you go for a high piety build at this level, you will only get to about 13,500 MP and ive got 12,700. The difference is VERY minimal.

[GeekMatt]

SS has a potency-like affect on HoTs

O. I appreciate the input, I had read mention of it's upcoming change months back and assumed we'd just stop ticking on those predetermined intervals.

Were you ever Raiding in Coil, when Content was new?

To be fair, I've only tanked coil pre-echo and in lower gear. I've healed new primals and only recently decided to main the role after doing almost everything as WHM/SCH/PLD/NIN. At the launch of each coil being added to DF I always farmed the turns as WHM/SCH since PLD was already geared. I may be missing that experience in tighter fights (tighter meaning requiring full party near-top performance, I've certainly done the whole solo-healing of an imperfect party in Titan EX type of tight), so I will get back to you when I have that.

I don't claim to be the best, but I do have exceptional mp management and there is some degree of predictability even in new encounters and more so after each wipe. I don't mean to sound arrogant or argue with someone that has more experience than myself with this in particular, but as I mentioned earlier, even with experienced hardcore healers I've seen some lacking mp management. If I ever feel I could use more mp than what's naturally provided when focusing Crit, DET, SS, then I won't hesitate to stack piety. Until then I'm pretty confident on my WHM as-is.

[Raminax]

Determination was severely nerfed in 3.0. Spell speed was hugely buffed for a job like WHM since it's a HoT-focused role. As of June, Spell Speed will ALWAYS be a better choice over Determination for WHM.

Not entirely true. Determination's effects were reduced when it comes to auto-attacks, nothing else (i.e. the Det nerfs border on completely irrelevant for a caster).

And while I haven't done much testing, Spell Speed doesn't feel like it scales as good as some people think. Granted, I did a rather minor test of 100 ticks each with 0 and 100 spell speed (and no other secondaries or Mind interfering), but the average Regen and Medica II tick only went up by 2%.

Granted, 2% for 100 spell speed is a fair amount when you consider how much secondaries we get from the usual piece of gear nowadays. And while we do love our HoTs, it's not all of our healing.

[Cassandaria]

From my experience, always focus your primary stat first. As a white mage, that's mind. From there, the focus is on the kind of healer you want to be. Determination will give you bigger up front heals, but the bread and butter of a good white mage is in the regens, which get improved by your mind stat (as all of your healing is) as well as your spell speed. Higher spell speed means bigger regen numbers. But again, you can be determination and crit focused as well, but you lose the efficiency and power in your regens. So just think of the kind of healer you want to be as neither option is inherently wrong and you can always adjust your gear later. Your primary focus though, should just be getting your ilvl up first, then seeing what you are most comfortable with.