How does SE plan to restore White Mage's identity as a healer?

[Docteur_Fluttershy]

its in the mind of people that WHM is the "pure healer with most OP heals" since it was the case back before 3.0, where there was only SCH and WHM, and sch didnt have emergency tactic and indom, making the WHM the only healer with 150+ potency AoE and 400+ solo target heal.

That isnt the case anymore since 3.0, but the mindset of the players havent changed a bit, so we're stuck labelled as the "pure healer".

[FoxyAreku]

White mage never lost its identity...?

It has always been and probably will always be the strongest healer for pure healing bar none, and it even does the most damage (in short bursts cos lol mp management). What more of an identity does it need?

White mages are still being used in savage progression to make heal-intensive fights easier at low item level, and they bring the mind buff which is basically a permanent balance on itself and the offhealer, if you think white mage is bad you might just be bad with it (or overthinking it).

[Leigaon]

I'd like them to continue with the HoT aspect of the job, along with the burst heals. Spreading them around. This won't be enough though. Adding various additions so that cures critical and regens can be stacked / reapplied in various ways. So that AST can still have the single or aoe heal that regens, but whm has a few more in their toolkits.

I feel we're seriously lacking in mitigation. I'd love to see something like NulMagi that increases the parties defense to magical damage for 15s. En-light / en-brave to add to the party for either increased damage / tp regen etc. It's hard though, looking back at white mage I see them as those that really cure, remove poisons. Problem is curing is a staple but there's not much needed in terms of Esuna, things like stacks of poisons can make a party for a bad time but also some situations they can just leave it.

In terms of something in the end-game land. I can see how AST are loved since they can toss a balance at a proper time. I want to see how they re-do the skills in 4.0. Like repose, don't need that and when you do it's resisted. Fluid aura, no need for that knock back with the exception of early dungeons. I haven't done PVP in a while but it was fun to use there! Maybe keep the KB a PvP trait.

Hard to think about ways to make it sustain the party since most of the instances the way a party stays alive is by knowing the dance or damage dealing the living crap out of it.

I think in the end the healing aspect will be very little in terms of difference between the 3 jobs. We may get more ways to add regens, critical heal while SCH can have the fairy do some outside healing + a few things like a regen while the SCH casts barriers. AST will be able to toggle to one or the other and keep up but will have a few toolkits to make sure they don't fall behind. What will most likely determine their identity is what support they can give. That..to me, is difficult. But this is why I play games instead of making them.

[Docteur_Fluttershy]

SE could do some good regen spells that would be for WHM while being really helped by SCH and AST toolkit, with for example:

A regen that would either heal if the target isnt full life, or add a stack of 1% damage reduction if the target is full health when the regen ticks. put the Regen potency at 40, make it go for 60s.

If in this 60s, the target was full for 5 ticks on the 20 there are, he will have 5% reduction for the remaining time, up to 20% at the end (which would last for 3s).

May feel really powerfull, but i dont think anyone can manage to have a tank full life in a raid for 60s straight on every tick of 3s, unless the sch/ast spam shield on it.

(i'm not saying WHM need that, i'm just sayin there are a lot of possible aspect that arent exploited, this ability may be really overpowered, or totally useless depending on who use it.)