Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Yorumi]

Wow. I never said remove the buffs from anyone. It does not have to be an all or none response. Completely removing the buffs is a bit over board. Also, thanks for the vocabulary lesson.

I was using a bit of hyperbole to make a point. I'm going to focus entirely on AST for now but most of it applies to sch too. As long as AST can buff the party and heal the content there's going to be no reason to pick a whm who can't do a part of that. Even if you reduce the most ironically named card(balance) AST is still just a whm with buffs and out of balance. Hence remove all their buffs.

Of course there are other interesting ways you could balance this. Whms traditionally have been able to inflict moderate damage in FF games. In FF1, while no damage dealer a whm's hammer shouldn't be under estimated. They've always had holy, in ff9 for example Eiko was easily on par with vivi for damage dealing once she got holy(i'm ignoring summers cause well, that's a summoner thing). So given that you could of course neft AST heals to the point that they seriously struggle to heal and have to spend most of the fight not DPSing. Whm on the other hand has large heals which afford them time to do a lot of dpsing. The balance comes then from AST cards, the whm does direct damage and the AST makes up for their lack of personal dps through indirect damage(party buffs).

The point is balance should be achieved by looking at overall party contribution, not just HPS. Increased HPS is of not real value if it's not improving party contribution.

[Valmaxian]

If astrologians could not buff a group to the level they do currently this would be a non issue. Simple tweaks to astrologian buffs could easily pull them out of the rafters. Whm's current identity is just not one that western players are happy with.

This is how I feel as well. Balance by itself, while very powerful, is not game breaking. Its Expanded Balance that's causing the salt. I get it. But its interesting how no-one talks about AST's limited AoE range for heals and cards, and our pitiful DPS until 52 and 54 when we finally get Gravity and Malefic II. These are clear disadvantages when comparing healers. As unpopular an idea as it might be, perhaps Square considers game balance at all levels of play, and not just max level. WHMs talk about feeling inadequate in 60 raids, and I as an AST feel like a burden in anything pre-54. I'm certainly not criticizing the desire for class balance, but I think these observations are relevant.

[Xylas]

I was using a bit of hyperbole to make a point. I'm going to focus entirely on AST for now but most of it applies to sch too. As long as AST can buff the party and heal the content there's going to be no reason to pick a whm who can't do a part of that. Even if you reduce the most ironically named card(balance) AST is still just a whm with buffs and out of balance. Hence remove all their buffs.

Of course there are other interesting ways you could balance this. Whms traditionally have been able to inflict moderate damage in FF games.

In your honest opinion, do you believe that White Mages will be turned down and people will wait for other healers because of this? Or that people will not play White Mage in 4.0? I'm not being snarky, I'm actually curious of what you think.

[Feidam]

snip

No offense but you can not look to a single player game and use it's concept of a character to use in an mmo. The two game styles require different approaches. Second hyperbole is not actually all that conducive to constructive discussions as it usually just derails the point you are trying to make.

Why do you have to nerf the astologian healing? The buffing of the astrologian can be tuned such that it compares to what a white mage and scholar can output offensively. I'm also curious as to what "buffs" you think the scholar really has going for it. I can think of two. Both of which were never a major problem prior. it just seems like you want the white mage to be a changed from what the developers has set as it's identity. While I'm not opposed to this in the slightest it doesn't have to be just a buffer as well. This is of course assuming the expansion has already rebalanced everything.

[Sebazy]

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.

Ok as much as I think this thread is a train wreck, I just can't resist =(

In what way is WHM truly underpowered?

No balance card? Not really a valid answer for anything in Creator, yes it's a wonderful thing for 'muh logs' but if your group is on point with mechanics it isn't needed at all, Creator's DPS checks are incredibly generous throughout, balance generally makes it easier to push and skip particular phases and mechanics (Orb phase in A11S was probably the first and most obvious example to stand out) but it was far from required. My static had everything cleared within 2 weeks or so and at no point were we racing enrages or failing any DPS check outside of people forgetting to kill the damn pauldron. It couldn't have been further removed from Gordias/Midas progression in this regard. I'll also not accept Bole as an answer either, it was a nice luxury to allow my warrior to sit in deliverance during the last adds, but again, it made no real difference to the encounter beyond 'muh logs'.

Weaker MP regeneration. This is the valid one imo. WHM has a harder time getting it's MP back on track after early mistakes. An early raise or two would cause you to double dip on lost DPS as your BRD/MCH and healer DPS took a hit getting things back on track. Generally it was better to just wipe and reset during early progression.

What am I missing here?

Non optimal? Absolutely. Underpowered? Not really, try healing a PLD through A12S in min ilvl if you want to experience what underpowered really looks like.

[Feidam]

This is how I feel as well. Balance by itself, while very powerful, is not game breaking. Its Expanded Balance that's causing the salt. I get it. But its interesting how no-one talks about AST's limited AoE range for heals and cards, and our pitiful DPS until 52 and 54 when we finally get Gravity and Malefic II. These are clear disadvantages when comparing healers. As unpopular an idea as it might be, perhaps Square considers game balance at all levels of play, and not just max level. WHMs talk about feeling inadequate in 60 raids, and I as an AST feel like a burden in anything pre-54. I'm certainly not criticizing the desire for class balance, but I think these observations are relevant.

The astrologian's aoe heal radius is just a part of the class. just like the fairy for the scholar has a shorter cast range than the scholar. The dps of the astrologian should be lower than the other two healers as it's buffs are quite potent. even before the insane buff the balance card received it was a nice buff. Sadly players will always have the grass is greener kind of attitude. Class balance is a pipe dream imo. however, it doesn't mean it shouldn't be strived for. I just see a lot people go ooo look what they have I want it too. When that isn't what is necessarily needed based on content design.

[Yorumi]

In your honest opinion, do you believe that White Mages will be turned down and people will wait for other healers because of this? Or that people will not play White Mage in 4.0? I'm not being snarky, I'm actually curious of what you think.

There's a lot to look at really. Anything below the current ilevel ex primals is trivial content and balancing classes kind of doesn't matter. Maybe the normal mode 8-man raid matters as I remember people having trouble with alex normal at times. So in that sense people will play it regardless for that content. For content where balance starts to matter, yeah you'll start seeing party finders and shouts saying no whm. If this were a game where you couldn't switch jobs at will you'd probably see a lot fewer whms. Since people can effectively have a "raid" healer and a "casual" healer on one character it keeps numbers up.

You could in theory tune the balance card so low that most people wouldn't care to exclude whms, though I'd never suggest that cause it just turns AST into a recolored whm and that's dumb. I mean just personally I didn't seriously play whm or pld due to their lack of desirability.

No offense but you can not look to a single player game and use it's concept of a character to use in an mmo.

I'm using those games to show the conceptual design behind classes. Single player games still adhere to some balance, though obviously they can get away with far more imbalance than mmos(ie I'd never suggest a whm actually have the dps power of a blm). An AST cannot have healing nearly equal to a whm and buffs something has to give. If you nerf buffs to the point of not having them why have them at all? I was mostly just exploring alternative ways they could balance classes, they can give whm some sort of buff spells to equal up to AST buffs, or the could use my alternate or some of the alternate I havn't conceived of. The idea behind nerfing healing was to force AST to spent most of their time healing, leaving little time for personal dps, the compensation for that is their buffs and their dps contribution is what the party does thanks to their buffs. Whm would then be more balanced because their powerful healing would mean they could spend more time dpsing(something not out of place for whms traditionally) and thus their damage contribution is direct.

Essentially AST and SCH has healing + utility, whm has healing. That means to balance things we either have to give whm utility, or nerf one or both aspects of AST and SCH.

[javid]

snip

why stomach these ppl that couldn't even list you a comparison of gcds and utility among the healer's tool set, Nor explain in what content situation does one gcd/utility outweigh another?? They're predominantly complaining b/c they understood one or two WHM shortcomings and now they cry CHANGE IT ALL....when they never learned it all........

imo let this thread die and let's get bk to discussing actual healing theories and content mechs.

[Xylas]

There's a lot to look at really. Anything below the current ilevel ex primals is trivial content and balancing classes kind of doesn't matter. Maybe the normal mode 8-man raid matters as I remember people having trouble with alex normal at times. So in that sense people will play it regardless for that content. For content where balance starts to matter, yeah you'll start seeing party finders and shouts saying no whm. If this were a game where you couldn't switch jobs at will you'd probably see a lot fewer whms. Since people can effectively have a "raid" healer and a "casual" healer on one character it keeps numbers up.

Do we have any speculation on what that shiny buff was that she threw on the black mage? Or what that watery looking effect was? Seemed to be another buff, but looked like it was a self buff.

[Feidam]

Do we have any speculation on what that shiny buff was that she threw on the black mage? Or what that watery looking effect was? Seemed to be another buff, but looked like it was a self buff.

We do not. Which is why this whole premise of nerfing and or buffing the whm at this point is premature. No one has seen the changes or played with the changes. They heard a buzz word/phrase and and viola.