Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Yuyuka3]

You sure are passionate about this eh? Try to calm down with the salt a bit though, I'm sure we are both intelligent people, lets try debating in a manner that fits ok? <3

Always. Patience got wittled down over the past four years, leaving only passionate protectionism behind. Also, I love myself a good debate. What I don't like, however, is being told that my worries count nothing because someone else supposedly has it worse. It's not helpful, and devaluates somebody else's problems, which is never a good thing.

Re PFs, my point is that at this stage with gear as it is +echo, it's pointless locking out any job. Anyone trying to enforce a meta (or non meta) comp on their PF beyond simply trying to ensure you don't end up with a comedy club setup is rather likely to be an idiot. It's just not needed. If you don't like it, make your own.

Wasn't exactly talking about now. I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm currently just logging in for daily stuff, if at all; not much else to do. My computer is causing problems, too, so playing is a bit of a hassle right now until I get it fixed. Also, a few games got released recently that I want to play right now, so I'm mostly killing time until the expansion hits. RL is also quite busy right now, which is why I was away all day.
Anyway. What I was talking about was when Zurvan just came out/pre-echo Alexander. Barely a chance to get anything then, and heared similar stories from other less sought after classes. Of course it doesn't matter now anymore, nether said anything against that, but do I really should have to wait until content is so faceroll that it doesn't matter what you play anymore to get into groups?

As for your point regarding joining statics, I did read it, but I also don't buy it. Not one little bit. I've never had an issue getting a seat in a top notch static and I've always been considered a WHM main amongst my server's raid community from day one.

Well... I even searched on Reddit, and in this very forums, but nothing. And the only groups recruiting while I was looking were groups that wanted more time investment than I can offer, or super-casual groups. However, looks like my old raid (which disbanded around two months ago) might at least partially return to the game with the expansion, so maybe I can search with others instead of alone. That would make things easier.

You say WHMs are at risk of falling off the edge, yet a quick scroll through PF to look at the actual players in parties that are forming on Chaos right now, 3 AST, 6 WHM, 0 SCH. Go figure. Maybe I'll be more concerned when people stop playing the role.

Just that it's not really a meter for how many people play the class in progression. Not even remotely. Maybe those people normally play AST in raids because their groups wants it that way, but actually prefer WHM. I know quite a few people who are this way. Maybe they feel WHM is less stressful, so now that they know the content, they just want to casually farm stuff and take WHM because it doesn't matter anymore. Or they aren't raiders at all, but farm birds/want to get content clear now when it doesn't matter how good you are because of echo. Do we know? Not really. Also, why does it even have to go so far as WHM not being played anymore before change happens? Change it while people are still playing it, or else you get the problem that by the time you do fix it, nobody wants to come back to it.

Ok so, we've got balance (That's 600-750ish free DPS raidwide assuming a baseline of 15k RDPS pre echo), I'll throw bole alongside it as well since it's had some moments of glory this tier.
ASTs MP regen blows WHM into the weeds, personally I think this is a bigger issue than balance.

It's not really a bigger issue when balance is the main reason AST is seen as mandatory right now. It is a huge issue, sure, and one SE caused willingly and knowingly by simply overbuffing AST.

What other problems are there that are so bad that you've got to seemingly scream and shout about them? CU edges out Asylum but both have their benefits over each other, Synastry and Lightspeed vs DS and PoM could go either way and I suspect that's just a personal preference thing. Disable is unashamedly better than WHM Virus, but E4E makes up for that.

Did I ever mentioned those skills even once? My problem, to come full circle, lies in the fact that WHM looses 5 skills into the role pool, meaning that if you want to have all the skills you had before from your class/job alone (meaning no cross-class), you already have to use up all the slots. If you then factor in cross-class, WHM would loose skills they previously had due to this new system.
Also in that Yoshida said WHM is a "pure healer"; he said something similar before 3.0 came along, and io and behold, WHM got not a single utility skill, just healing and some DPS. In other words, if their definition of a pure healer is a healer without group utility, WHM got a huge problem since it's still the only of the three healers without any, while both other healers got sufficient healing, DPS, and utility in the form of group buffs on top. Unless WHM gets something truely great and unique in that regard with 4.0, which so far doesn't seem to be the case, WHM will have huge problems the next two years.
I further know WHM theoretically got the highest sustained DPS out of all three healers, but WHM also cannot properly utilize that because of being gimped by MP management and accuracy issues. While accuracy will likely not be a problem anymore in Stormblood, I can't see how the MP issues will be fixed, unless they severely lower MP costs on WHMs DPS spells. Also, it just blows that SoS is now a role skill, no matter how you look at it. Also, with the current Balance, even if WHM had infinite MP and no accuracy issues, it would still not be enough to pick it over one of the other healers because they are just too strong and bring things to the table WHM simply cannot offer, while not offering anything unique in turn.

And to flip the coin, I think you're missing the fact that whilst the extra HPS WHM brings might not be required at this time, but it's still a safety net that DiuAST doesn't always have. I'm half inclined to wonder if SE are viewing WHM as an easier healer to play vs the additional complexities and APM requirements of AST and SCH and are balancing it as such.

I'm repeating myself here, but I mentioned here and in another thread that I seriously doubt the extra healing might ever again be required, because SE wants all combinations of healers to be viable. However, if AST/SCH cannot clear content due to too low healing, nobody would bring this healer composition, which is something SE doesn't want to happen. Because of this, content will stay the way it is now, meaning that the only advantage WHM has, more healing power, is not an advantage at all. And safety nets don't mean anything in the top groups where everyone plays almost flawlessly most of the time, or when people know what to do. And I simply hate the argument that WHM is the healer for bad groups. It's a beautiful class and deserves better than being pigeonholed into the role of babysitter for scrub groups, sorry.

Also, I don't really care about their reasoning. All I see is cause and effect, with the effect being that WHM is slowly pushed out of meta to the point of barely being considered in top groups anymore because it doesn't offer the utility the other two classes do.
Last, I also raided as a SCH a few times. Even though my SCH was far less well-geared than my WHM back then, I never had any trouble performing, and didn't feel like I had so much more to do than as WHM, so I never understood the circle j**k about SCH being so much more complex. And yes, I did control the Faery myself, I did DPS, and I did shield when needed. Nobody died except of own failure. I still felt less stressed and almost bored than on WHM in the same situation.



To the person claiming that WHM being pushed out is a form of self-fullfilling profecy. Sorry, that's bulls. First of, WHM got some ridicule from certain ASTs way before that happened. Second, the real hysteria set in after the final buffs when AST got pushed so much ahead of WHM, and it was more than justified to be upset about that. Third, there are always people with inferiority complexes around; I remember all the hysteria about SCH being useless now because the Faery got nerfed and Lustrate being affected by Cleric's that set in right after 3.0 hit. With your reasoning, SCH should have fallen out of grace due to self-fullfilling profecy back then, too. Which quite obviously didn't happen. Nor did it happen to AST, who really had some problems back then. As someone else said already, correlation=/=causation.

Sadly, the negativity surrounding WHMs currently isn't just on the side of WHMs.

Not even quite that current; “my AST is so much better than your WHM and I can do such great things you can’t!” started over a year ago; it just spread quite a lot since then.

[Sebazy]

Regarding the role actions, I suspect all 3 healers are going to lose out on that front in the same way that tanks are. The saving grace here is the buffs that Surecast got, if other abilities get the same treatment then it might actually turn out to be ok. We just don't know for sure yet.

And safety nets don't mean anything in the top groups where everyone plays almost flawlessly most of the time, or when people know what to do. And I simply hate the argument that WHM is the healer for bad groups.

Unfortunately I suspect that that's what SE see it as =/

Step out of the perfect sterile world that is theory crafting on these forums, and people do make mistakes, this is where the safety net of WHMs additional HPs comes into play. People make mistakes, healers drop the ball from time to time. Whilst that extra HPS that WHM brings is overkill on a perfect run, this is where it becomes worthwhile. Not every static is progression grade and not every healer can play perfectly for 10 minutes straight. That's the value that SE are aiming for I think.