Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Reiryuu]

And why would you assume WHM is irrelevant when you have no solid info to back it up? Have you got early access to the tooltips or something? :'D

I was around when the game went from 2.0 to 3.0.

But Yoshi P said himself on the live stream: "WHM hasn't really changed at all. We wanted to keep it as a pure healer." That pretty much tells you all you need to know and he said the same thing regarding AST and SCH (minus the pure healer bit)

[Kabzy]

I was around when the game went from 2.0 to 3.0.

But Yoshi P said himself on the live stream: "WHM hasn't really changed at all. We wanted to keep it as a pure healer." That pretty much tells you all you need to know and he said the same thing regarding AST and SCH (minus the pure healer bit)

Except you know nothing of the changes they will make to the existing actions of the other healers. So again, there's no reason for anyone to complain already. I was also there at the start of 3.0. AST still had the utility, yet it was irrelevant until around 3.3 - 3.4. So until we can see solid info on the entire kit of the three healers, you can't assume WHM will be irrelevant.

WHM will be balanced around the healers, not just itself and expecting it to be buffed to God tier. So you need to look outside the box and wait until we get info on ALL three healers.

In fact... since I didnt see Stoneskin on the shared role action list, it seems like Stoneskin and Stoneskin II will be exclusive to WHM in 4.0

We also didn't see Stoneskin/II on the WHM hotbar when it was shown. So there is some speculation that they may have removed it completely.

[Yuyuka3]

Except you know nothing of the changes they will make to the existing actions of the other healers. So again, there's no reason for anyone to complain already. I was also there at the start of 3.0. AST still had the utility, yet it was irrelevant until around 3.3 - 3.4. So until we can see solid info on the entire kit of the three healers, you can't assume WHM will be irrelevant.

WHM will be balanced around the healers, not just itself and expecting it to be buffed to God tier. So you need to look outside the box and wait until we get info on ALL three healers.

- Yoshi said something like "We want WHM to be more of a pure healer"

That alone is reason enough to be very, very concerned. If that's not enough:

- Also said something about no major overhauls to the class like some of the others had.

Or look at this for everything.

Unless they take away a lot of the support the others can give, which I'm 100% sure they won't do, it looks pretty bad.

[Kabzy]

Snip

It's not looking great for WHM, I do agree with that, but there was a time when WHM was able to surpass the utility that ASTs brought with its raw power. And there is no info out there to prove that the same cannot happen again. I'm pretty sure the devs acknowledged that AST in its current state is over-buffed, but it was done to get more people playing the job. So I'm pretty sure some utility from the other healers will be tuned down (balance especially) to negate a job being completely singled out.

Please do remember that the WHM struggle only really began after 3.3/3.4. No one complained about the lack of utility until they kept on giving ASTs buff after buff.

Edit: Fernosaur sums it up pretty nicely here.

[Yuyuka3]

It's not looking great for WHM, I do agree with that, but there was a time when WHM was able to surpass the utility that ASTs brought with its raw power. And there is no info out there to prove that the same cannot happen again. I'm pretty sure the devs acknowledged that AST in its current state is over-buffed, but it was done to get more people playing the job. So I'm pretty sure some utility from the other healers will be tuned down (balance especially) to negate a job being completely singled out.

Please do remember that the WHM struggle only really began after 3.3/3.4. No one complained about the lack of utility until they kept on giving ASTs buff after buff.

It won't happen again because Square wants all healers to be able to clear all content. That's why AST got overbuffed like that in the first place. That, in my eyes, also somewhat precludes WHM being able to overcome their lack of providing anything beside healing and dps, two things every other healer can do just as well or even better, and actually being considered for raid slots. Because if there's nothing there on WHM's end, it doesn't really matter if the utility of other classes is toned down, WHM simply won't be able to catch up with their complete lack of it. Also, since WHM looses the most skills to the new role skill system, they are also the most shafted in their choices there, since the skills the others had to take up will still be taken up, while WHM will struggle to get all the essential old skills, and will have no place for the new ones. As I see it know, I, for example, will have a hard time even fitting the new Cleric's stance in there, which will hamper my ability to dps, which, in turn, will push me down even further...

A SCH will likely still take up Protect (formerly WHM ability) and Swiftcast; then likely E4E (the only skill they lost from their original kit, though it simply replaces Stoneskin or Aero...) and Esuna, and the last slot I currently can't think of, probably the MP reg depending on what they do with Aetherflow. Everything else will likely be not as important, though they could swap out E4E or Esuna depending on their partner, maybe.
WHM, to keep their old function alone, will have to take up Protect, Swiftcast, Esuna, Cleric's Stance and Lucid Dream... simply to get the skills back that they lost, except for Swift which is so essential that it could well be a WHM native skill (or of any healer, for that matter). So, with this comparison alone, SCH needs to choose two skills from that list to function as they did before without cross class taken in, while WHM needs to choose... 5. GREAT choice, really. Oh, wait, I completely forgot they would also need Divine Seal back. That would make 6 abilities, meaning we loose out no matter what we do. GG.
And AST? What does AST have to choose to function as before? Ony Lucid Dream and Esuna, maybe Seal depending on if they chance their own heal increase, and that's it, the rest can be chosen more or less freely, just like SCH.

[Yorumi]

Everything else will likely be not as important, though they could swap out E4E or Esuna depending on their partner, maybe.

Depending on the encounter, sch already has esuna. Fey caress. Long cooldown yes, but if there's not a lot of stuff to get rid of they could really even consider dropping esuna without actually losing anything.

[Neela]

I was around when the game went from 2.0 to 3.0.

But Yoshi P said himself on the live stream: "WHM hasn't really changed at all. We wanted to keep it as a pure healer." That pretty much tells you all you need to know and he said the same thing regarding AST and SCH (minus the pure healer bit)

on the other hand no-one knows how the raids will be designed... maybe we will see major changes in endgame-content too? so whm still got the strongest reg-ticks and with mind as dmg stat whm can become a really strong burst dmg dealer... if they solve the mp-issue for dpsing... but yeah... I don't know why so many think that whm are dead or are going to die (again and again...) – let's see what will happen to us whms ^^

[Yorumi]

and with mind as dmg stat whm can become a really strong burst dmg dealer... if they solve the mp-issue for dpsing...

pre-SB cleric stance swapped your int and mnd stat. So in a sense mnd already was a dps stat for healers.

[Reiryuu]

on the other hand no-one knows how the raids will be designed... maybe we will see major changes in endgame-content too? so whm still got the strongest reg-ticks and with mind as dmg stat whm can become a really strong burst dmg dealer... if they solve the mp-issue for dpsing... but yeah... I don't know why so many think that whm are dead or are going to die (again and again...) – let's see what will happen to us whms ^^

They can't make changes to raid content that will force raids to take a white mage because that will wind up forcing one of the other two out. Unfortunately, this way of thinking SE has done is excluding whm now because they can't get it through their heads that a pure healer just isn't in demand by the game or the players.