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

[Neela]

I think this is something every healer main can agree on. White Mage is currently seriously lacking in an identity as a healer.

actually not true...

their identity is build around the strongest stacking HoTs & the strongest burst heal out of the three healer cls'. honestly i don't get why the whm-topics increased in the last few weeks out to heaven... "whm are dead", "whm toolkit lacks compared to bla", "why should i play whm at all?" and now even "whats the whm identity?"... i really don't get it... well maybe its just me

edit: and holy & assizes are the best aoe dmg skill of all healers toolkits... maybe just in my opionen as well though xD

Cheers
Yuni

[Dzian]

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".

I've always thought of white mage as the reactive healer. As it reacts to damage taken and heals it accordingly.

Scholars have always been the pro active healer. Where the idea is to shield the party before the damage is taken and thus you don't need to heal it after.

This is where I think so many scholars are bad because they play it in a reactive fashion and find they struggle or can't keep up. It's very rare to see a scholar galvanise a party before a stacking mechanic hits for example instead they all toss it out afterwards and end up tossing even more heals to top people off. Or struggling because they don't have the powerfully heals of a Whm. They try to play scholar reactively like white mage and it doesn't work well that way.

Ast I believe is meant to be the middle of the road. Half way between proactive and reactive bit I've not unlocked it so can't comment on how it plays. Maybe it's stepping on whm's toes a little too much I dunno. going only on what I've read it seems that ast is almost a carbon copy of whm with a couple of gimmicks thrown in. which would suggest the problem is with the asts identity and not the whms

I do find it amusing that the op wants to reinforce whm's identity as a healer. And most replies pertain to its dps. Says alot for the state of the game lol

[Exiled_Tonberry]

@Neela
Because them having the "strongest" hots and "strongest burst heals" is not true anymore AST and SCH heals are just as strong, with Cure III being the last strong heal they have left.
Also what strong heals and regens actually translates to is a plain healer. Both healers can do both of these, but they can also do more. There's nothing WHM bring uniquely to a raid, and it's blatantly obvious

Basically you fall into the category of people that Fluttershy just mentioned. The group that still thinks WHM is strongest healer, even though that was only true until AST became a thing and SCH got high burst heals.
Heck it was even true in 3.0 where AST has weaker base heals. Now it's not. Everyone can burst heal. Everyone can regen. Everyone can mitigate damage (except WHM lmfao). WHM needs some improvements, because right now it's just a plain healer that offers absolutely nothing but the basics.

[Watachy]

Yet another WHM crying thread.

You're seriously thinking WHM is lacking identity ? Dude, have you tried to play AST from 3.0 to 3.3 ? No one wanted you to play AST because the buff weren't good, the heal potency was lower than the others healers and now that our job have reached the goal SE gave to him (aka potentcially replace WHM or SCH ina group) people are all whining beacause AST seems too powerfull ? No one was doing it when AST was underpowered but now everyone seems to blame AST. Blame SE, our job had to wait more than an entire year to reach the goal he should have had since his release.

Won't argue too much since the it's the 100th WHM thread im doing it and imma just point this out:

Your job haven't changed at all, you didn't get nerfed, it's still as good as it was and still have the reputation to have some powerfull burst heal in the game.

Don't tell me WHM is a bad healer... please, don't do that ...

[Exiled_Tonberry]

@Dzlan: There's no such thing as a reactive healer. Healing in it's nature is reactive, the only exception being shielding.
Labeling WHM as a "reactive" healer is basically saying it functions as a standard healer.
Same with people calling WHM a "pure" healer. It's just a fancy way of saying that WHM offers nothing else but healing. There's no difference between the way I heal and the way a AST heals. It's a silly buzzword that needs to stop.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

@Watachy: WHM was only good in 3.0 because AST was bad. AST offers too much to the raid and WHM offers too little (aka nothing).
Re only reason WHM isn't dead right now is because people are used to the job. It's seriously lacking compared to the other two healers.

Is it a bad healer? No, it isn't. But it pales in comparison to its competition.
Also please tell me what WHMs identity is, if you feel they're not lacking in one.
Please dont say burst heals, pure heals or regen healer because absolutely every other healer does this as well. Please tell me what WHM uniquely brings to the table as a healer.

[Watachy]

Snip

WHM was the best healer since a long time and have now powerfull abilities since AST got buffed. AST was litterally a job that everyone was trashtalking back then and even now suffering from that past reputation.
In WHM case you still have a good reputation as great healer because it's fact, WHM is a great healer. You're not offering that much advantages like the others but it depends on your point of view.

As a main healer people expect you to heal and doing it properly (not decently, properly) you don't really need offer things for you party either. What about monks then ? It's the same problem, those two jobs are great in the way they are.
AST is now as interesting as WHM and it's a good thing too.

As i said, why are you complaning since your job is litterally as good it was ? Nothing really changed, just the community finally realised that AST is a good healer too.

[Ahrniel]

White Mage's mana consumption always bothered me, lore-wise it doesn't make sense since they seem to use the element's help to heal, and not use their own energy to do so, it is in the Conjurer's quest-line. There is also the concept of not abusing the help of the elements as a Conjurer, because that would destroy the balance in nature.
I think that despite throwing those ideas in the lore, they didn't explore them mechanic-wise.

First thing, if the White Mage uses the power of the elements to heal, and it cannot abuse them, we can assume that there should be a mechanic of either free heals for a certain ammount of time, or for a certain ammount of uses instead of the Cure I proc we have. After that the grace of the elements would wear off and unbalance would happen. In the unbalance nature becomes corrupted, and when corrupted it becomes violent.

I can imagine something of the likes of you having a "Purity" stack that descreases every time you heal. The Purity stacks would decrease your mana consumption by... 10% each? We could have 10 of them. By the time you reach zero Purity stacks, if you heal up you could start stacking "Corruption" stacks. Those could increase your mana consuption by 5%, and the damage of your spells by 10% each, up to 10 stacks. Since in the quest-line you remove corruption by "balancing the elements" with pretty much stoning and aeoring the elements I would then make it so damage spells remove corruption stacks and build up Purity stacks.

We could also have each tick of Aero removing 1 corruption stack, each cast of Stone removing 3 corruption stacks, and perhaps Water removing 5. Holy could reduce Purity by 5 when casted, working as a heal to build up Corruption, so people don't abuse the thing, because the first cast in 10 Purity stacks will be free, later on 10 Corruption stacks Holy would cause double damage, but would cost 50% more, for example.

So you would juggle between damage and healing like this. How about that? Now you got your identity.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

.

I'm not sure if this is what you're staying to imply, but it seems like you're saying since AST was bad before it doesn't matter if WHM is bad now...

[Watachy]

I'm not sure if this is what you're staying to imply, but it seems like you're saying since AST was bad before it doesn't matter if WHM is bad now...

Well AST was bad yeah, WHM isn't bad that's not true it's still as good as it was as i keep saying ^^