Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Exiled_Tonberry]

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Sorry for being blunt, but if you're going to be ignorant about the entire situation, why even reply?

Job balance doesn't only exist for the arbitrary percentage you made up for people doing progression raiding. More people care about this stuff than you think. People who raid at a high level but lower than world first. People who raid casually. Ex trial raiders. 24 man raiders. Just people who like to be efficient in expert dungeons.

In the same way, I could say people not raiding or not doing progression has no business in what happens to jobs in pursuit of balance, but that's ignorant of the situation.

And we're not asking for a gimmick. We're asking for something unique to them, whether that's a new mechanic, utility or something else entirely. We just want something to get out of the "viability" hole we're stuck in, and on to equal footing with the other healers.

It's fine if you don't want anything more from WHM yourself, but let's not undermine the situation and pretend that there's not other people who could possibly care or benefit from balance changes outside of 2% of the playerbase.

[Yorumi]

I think there's nothing wrong with WHM. o.O; Maybe it's because I don't give a toss about the opinions of the 2% raider meta, lol. It still keeps people alive, it's the closest thing we have to a classic MMO healer, in the same way that PLD is the closest we have to an actual tank. :/ I don't think they should abandon the "pure healer" concept, too many people are attached to it.

To me there's something wrong with the type of people who want to actively hurt a segment of the population just because they don't participate in it. Especially when balance hurts no one. I'd also strongly question this whole idea that it's some tiny part of the population, not that it should matter. The balance concerns apply to pretty much any pve content that is above 4 man dungeons. I'm pretty sure a decent part of the population does more than just 4 man dungeons, like ex primals, alex, etc.

Furthermore I'd argue people who want nothing but heals on whm don't know FF whms very well. Whms in FF have had utility spells. Haste, brave, faith, aura, dia(def down debuff) and such.

[SeriousxSarcasm]

Sorry for being blunt, but if you're going to be ignorant about the entire situation, why even reply?

Because people like to live in their own little circle of ignorance, and sometimes it nice to see a different perspective? People are running WHMs in their statics. It's not entirely optimal, but with content as easy as it currently is, you don't have to be. It's just really weird seeing so many people that honestly think WHM is dead, when I've seen the opposite? It's dead to the top 2%, and the wannabes (who don't actually have the skill to be in the top percentages lol, which is why they copy them in the first place), but you still see them in lots of groups, so that's why I felt the need to point it out.

How many times do you see an AST or SCH park themselves in cleric and let their WHM partner solo heal the fights? (most don't even ask, it's just the way they assume it'll be).

I get that my view is the unpopular one (in the small pool of players bored enough to lurk on the forums at least lol), but notice my last part does say WHM could use something unique. I just don't think it needs to be completely changed like I've seen some people suggest. Maybe the missing spells of Haste, Slow, etc could work for them.

[Feidam]

Technically white mages are viable. The player base and it's speed run mentality have pushed the white Mage out of the meta.

Although, we still do not know what all the new Lilly mechanic thing is going to bring the job. Could there be reason for being upset of course, but there could equally be reason for all this hand wringing to completely unwarranted.

[Yorumi]

I get that my view is the unpopular one (in the small pool of players bored enough to lurk on the forums at least lol), but notice my last part does say WHM could use something unique. I just don't think it needs to be completely changed like I've seen some people suggest.

I'd suggest you're the one living in a "circle of ignorance". I've yet to see anyone suggesting a complete overhaul of whm. Just that whm needs some utility to be viable. If it has been suggested it's certainly not a popular or common suggestion. So why then are you posting, and calling others ignorant when that's not the purpose, nor direction of this thread?

Technically white mages are viable. The player base and it's speed run mentality have pushed the white Mage out of the meta.

Not exactly. Taking an underpowered class is like losing several ilevels in content. It's not some "mentality" or some conspiracy. Imagine doing content where the entire raid is at the min ilevel. Not you take an underpowered class. In the case of a healer, given what ast is capable of, it's like the entire raid is now below the min ilevel.

[LadyKairi]

Snip

I don't even assume that whms are gonna solo heal anymore. The majority of whms I've come accross aren't good enough skill wise to handle it. I've always ended up having to pick up their slack. I have bad luck with the match making ._. But even when playing whm myself, I never see my cohealer go into cleric. Even scholars. It's VERY rare if I come accross one who does.

[LadyKairi]

I'd suggest you're the one living in a "circle of ignorance". I've yet to see anyone suggesting a complete overhaul of whm. Just that whm needs some utility to be viable. If it has been suggested it's certainly not a popular or common suggestion. So why then are you posting, and calling others ignorant when that's not the purpose, nor direction of this thread?

Feidam mentioned above that they think a lot of whms are/were wanting or expecting a full redesign. I think that's what they're referring to.

[SeriousxSarcasm]

I'd suggest you're the one living in a "circle of ignorance". I've yet to see anyone suggesting a complete overhaul of whm. Just that whm needs some utility to be viable. If it has been suggested it's certainly not a popular or common suggestion. So why then are you posting, and calling others ignorant when that's not the purpose, nor direction of this thread?

So you're suggesting that I need to shut up because people disagree? Is that fair? That's what I mean by ignorant. Not people in general, I never pointed at anyone and called them ignorant. I think telling people to be silent places an unavoidable bubble of ignorance, because they simply ignore the opinions of people that don't play the way they do. Willful ignorance, if you will. I enjoy these discussions, but please don't say my view is less valid just because I look at it differently.

[Yorumi]

So you're suggesting that I need to shut up because people disagree? Is that fair? That's what I mean by ignorant. Not people in general, I never pointed at anyone and called them ignorant. I think telling people to be silent places an unavoidable bubble of ignorance, because they simply ignore the opinions of people that don't play the way they do. Willful ignorance, if you will. I enjoy these discussions, but please don't say my view is less valid just because I look at it differently.

I'm questioning why you're posting when you're not posting about anything remotely related to the topic. No one is suggesting a complete overhaul of whm. You're disagreeing, or positing an alternative view, you're arguing to a complete straw man. Your argument is invalid not for it's content but because it's using a logical fallacy which creates an invalid argument. You havn't bothered to read or understand the thread, or what people are saying, and instead what to just inject yourself into the conversation and tell people they're ignorant for wanting a few utility spells to make whm a realistic choice for all content.

[javid]

There isn't a need for a complete redesign. Although we already know we're getting some redesign (though no specifics yet).

I fear a ton of ppl that are saying whm is subpar don't even know how nor why (CONTENT DICTATED REASONS WHY).

Without going into each of the cds and gcds lets just talk all things "pure" HEALING and mitigation.

HEALING

-Healing involved instant heals (cure, benefic, physick)
-Regen heals (regen, aspect benefic, Whipering dawn/embrace**)
-Shield heals (stoneskin, aspect benefic, adlo)

The there version of healing listed above are the COMPLETE aspect of HEALING. This can possible be the true meaning of "pure" healer. In our Current system only SCH (the king!) and AST (the prince) are effectively PURE healers, meeting all the requirements (instant heals, regens, and shields). This is the first issue WHM CURRENTLY has. EVEN THOUGH WHM has the strongest instant heals, and the strongest regens; b/c they lack sufficient shield healing, they're not a "pure healer" by the definition I listed.

MITIGATION

Now lets go into mitigation
Technically Shields can be effectively counted as mitigation, but since the system treats shields as additional HP, we'll keep shields in the Healing category. So mitigation consist of utilities that proactively reduce inc dmg (virus, disable, e4e, fey conv, soil, CU, etc). In the mitigation section WHM only has access to a physical version of virus (in a game with extremely few physical aoe's) and a 3min version of Sch's 2min E4E (that can also, along with virus, be cross classed by any other mage but ast). So here again!! WHM has effectively extremely little proactive mitigation utilities.

So not only is WHM NOT effectively a PURE healer; it's also not a hybrid of pure and mitigation. THIS IS WHY given the CURRENT game content WHM suffers in raid content.


HOPE FOR THE FUTURE...

Moving forward into the new SB world; they can make WHM into a PURE healer (one with best instant cures, best regens, and best shields) but give it no proactive mitigation utilities (like disable, virus, [i know they still have e4e but SE said it's different now...], fey conv, etc).

Likewise they can make AST's and SCH's PURE healing facilitate a role subordinate to WHM's in the category of PURE healing (instant heals, regens, shields) YET keep their mitigation utilities sufficient enough to clear content.

Philosophically, content can be designed around these concepts of PURE & hybrid; but practically the issue will be balance; how do you make WHM superior healing not displace AST/SCH in a given content? How do you make ast/sch hybrid (pure/utilities) not displace WHM in a given content?

Edit

Just spit balling.

Image that job actions we saw of WHM was an ability that changed all of whm cures excess healing into HP extension (effectively a shield more technically a semi "thrill of battle"). For example image a tank has a max HP pool of 10k, then whm uses a utility that allows his 300 HP cure to now extend the tanks Max hp up to 13k if the tank is healed at max HP while the skill is active. this would allow for less overhealing (while skill is active). If this same 10k max tank had only 7k hp of his max 10k and received that same skill activated cure for 300 HP it would not gain the effect of HP extension (this would make the skill something only beneficial after the person is topped off). Also the benefit of HP extension would dissipate upon receiving dmg equal to the overheal, so that means you could reapply an additional HP extension right after the previous for as long as the WHM utililty is active!!