Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Exiled_Tonberry]

What is the point of having powerful new heals if there is almost no where they are actually needed?

That is exactly what we've been trying to say for 18 pages now lol. The extra healing their toolkit provides is completely unnecessary for nearly all of the content we have, if not ALL of it. It comes off as extra overhealing that benefits no one at all. This is exactly why a pure healing identity will never work. It's simply not needed.
To be fair Balance is not "needed" either, but what would you prefer? Overhealing, or a 20% buff to everyone?

[Belhi]

That is exactly what we've been trying to say for 18 pages now lol. The extra healing their toolkit provides is completely unnecessary for nearly all of the content we have, if not ALL of it. It comes off as extra overhealing that benefits no one at all. This is exactly why a pure healing identity will never work. It's simply not needed.
To be fair Balance is not "needed" either, but what would you prefer? Overhealing, or a 20% buff to everyone?

Well I am confrontationally agreeing with you then! :P

Need is probably the wrong word. Of value is probably a better one. Overhealing is little value. The 20% buff is of major value. I think there are several ways they could go to fix the current situation but they need to have a clear vision of what they want the healers classes to be that matches the gameplay design provided.

For example if they decided to have this hybrid healing/dps design be the norm, they could integrate dps spells into core mechanics (ie. Stone 3 gives a stacking buff that lowers the cast time on Cure or increases the potency of the next Medica.) If they went this way they could perhaps turn WHM into the WAR of healers, giving it a noticeable advantage in actual dps so that while the other healers could bring support WHM could maintain a noticeably higher dps contribution.

Alternatively they could pull back to focus on healing, nerfing the strength of healing spells across the board, so it is costly to heal an entire party up to full in 2 GCDs and add more mechanics to healing gameplay. This would actually push it more to a model like WoW has, particularly where you can balance healers around their ability to tackle particular mechanics.

The other option I could see is just generally filling out the support role in the sense of buffs. There is some issue with the potential of class homogenisation there but at least your going to have something closer to a balanced set up and they can be at least mechanically different.

Regardless at the moment their design vision and the reality of gameplay in game just isn't matching up.

[Reiryuu]

For example if they decided to have this hybrid healing/dps design be the norm, they could integrate dps spells into core mechanics (ie. Stone 3 gives a stacking buff that lowers the cast time on Cure or increases the potency of the next Medica.) If they went this way they could perhaps turn WHM into the WAR of healers, giving it a noticeable advantage in actual dps so that while the other healers could bring support WHM could maintain a noticeably higher dps contribution.

Probably not for WHM. If Yoshida decides to implement his Onmyouji (Yin-Yang Priest) that would be the perfect mechanic. Or something similar to the Loremaster from LOTR:O (DPS to get more powerful DPS abilities and reset for healing and get more healing.) Though I think it could be cool to have something where you DPS 3-5 times and get an ability that unleashes a heal and heal 3-5 times and unleash a powerful DPS ability... but that's off topic.

[javid]

You guys go bk to current content design as a precursor for the future content (knowing full well SE has changed the battle system). Rather you should think "if this aspect of the battle systems stays the same then such and such would result this way (or that way)." But ppl keep say this can\\'t work! Or that can\\'t work! Bc the CURRENT game says so..........yes Maybe the current game says so.....but what does the new game say?

[javid]

Example we see healer cross role appears to have a ton of current whm's utilities. All those utilities are pretty generic (healing buff, hate and no management, swift, cleric, etc). "Oh no!! They took all of whm utilities and made them cross class!! This can't work [in the current system]!!"
Maybe in the new system, however they reworked the specific job buffs. Like removed the 20% base healing buff from synastry and reduce the target buff down from 40% to 30% (so now ast needs use both healing buffs to get 60% buff on targeted member. Likewise sch loses fey illum and retains dissipation at a 15% buff instead of 20%.

Moral of the story: there are sooooo many ways they can adjust the styles of the healers and their combos. Nor is the adjustments final come patch. Everything is subject to change based on community feedback .

[Belhi]

They said that WHM will be a Pure healer Job. The fact it is a Pure healer is the problem it currently has. This suggests they haven't cottoned on it to the cause of the healer imbalance and what is necessary to fix it. Frankly WHM isn't loosing much utility cause it didn't have much to start with.

[Reiryuu]

Moral of the story: there are sooooo many ways they can adjust the styles of the healers and their combos. Nor is the adjustments final come patch. Everything is subject to change based on community feedback .

*bangs head on wall* No. No there isn't. The only way they can make a pure healer fit into the raiding scheme is if raiding requires the extra healing. If they did that, WHM would become manditory to take. That isn't something they are willing to do-- they want all healers to be viable. This is why they gave the original Pro-Shell ability to all healers. This is why they nerfed Graniteskin, the Cure III trait and gave us shit for replacements.Because of that very simple philosophy, Nothing SE can or is willing to do will change the fact that all three healers will be capable of healing in all raiding content, but AST and SCH will do so with a plethora of added utility in comparisson.

Unless SE changes their mindset, and the whole Pure Healer idea is proof enough that they haven't-- this fundamental line of thinking that's driving their development and balance will never fix this error. It's like someone putting a > instrad of a < in a line of code and no one is willing to bother to go look for it.

[javid]

Well keep banging your head on the wall bc your close mind has predetermined what it means to be a "pure" healer and has also predetermined that there is only ONE type of content that would necessitate your stickler definition.

Nothing about the concept of pure healer demands excess healing..... nothing that you can point to with absolute certainty can help prove YOUR stipulation that ast/sch will have more functional utility/healing that will displace whm moving forward.....


All you're doing...and those like you are doing is....looking at current content and battle system and SUPPOSING the future can no deviate from the present (a supposition that is completely conjecture....zerrooo proof....yet y'all bloviate as if some FFXIV prophet).

[javid]

Well keep banging your head on the wall bc your close mind has predetermined what it means to be a "pure" healer and has also predetermined that there is only ONE type of content that would necessitate your stickler definition.

Nothing about the concept of pure healer demands excess healing..... nothing that you can point to with absolute certainty can help prove YOUR stipulation that ast/sch will have more functional utility/healing that will displace whm moving forward.....


All you're doing...and those like you are doing is....looking at current content and battle system and SUPPOSING the future can no deviate from the present (a supposition that is completely conjecture....zerrooo proof....yet y'all bloviate as if some FFXIV prophet).

[Cynfael]

Well keep banging your head on the wall bc your close mind has predetermined what it means to be a "pure" healer and has also predetermined that there is only ONE type of content that would necessitate your stickler definition.

Nothing about the concept of pure healer demands excess healing..... nothing that you can point to with absolute certainty can help prove YOUR stipulation that ast/sch will have more functional utility/healing that will displace whm moving forward.....


All you're doing...and those like you are doing is....looking at current content and battle system and SUPPOSING the future can no deviate from the present (a supposition that is completely conjecture....zerrooo proof....yet y'all bloviate as if some FFXIV prophet).

It's true that none of us know exactly how 4.0 will work, but it's fair to conjecture based on the game's track record thus far and on what current information we have. Players who desire that WHM be not only viable but competitive in future content have the right idea in expressing their concern over the direction of the Job.

SE hasn't quite stepped up to the plate regarding WHM since 3.0 hit and they needed to make it so that any one of three healers could be viable solo and in partnership with either of the remaining two. Since this meant giving SCH and AST competitive AoE healing options and overall potency on par with that of WHM, it's no wonder that WHM is in a bit of an identity crisis.

SE could still pull through with whatever changes they have planned that we don't yet know about and/or with designing content in a way that makes one or more WHM-specific abilities extremely desirable (basically WHM's hat pre-3.0, when WHM AoE healing options made life so much easier in certain duties compared to relying on a SCH's more complicated and less bursty AoE options at the time), but I remain somewhat concerned until I see exactly how the 4.0 iteration of WHM will fit in.