Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[LadyKairi]

Well, I had spent the last few hours watching, rewatching and writing down my observations of the healer portions of the job actions trailer. Since this thread is about WHM and I feel the other two healer previews are pretty obvious on whats going on (for the most part), I'm just gonna post my WHM thoughts/observations, and leave out the other two.


White Mage
Now here is where I find it kinda tricky, which I'm sure is intended. Although, while rewatching the WHM preview, I noticed something really interesting. At least in my opinion. I sort of did a double-take. I don't recognize many of the skills, so will just refer to most of them as "Unknown Skills" (duh).

- Unknown Skill #1: If I remember correctly, the lilies on the UI show up when you cast a heal. Only judging by the animation and the WHM UI, this seems to be a buff that they used on themselves that will affect the next skill.

- Unknown Skill #2: This one shows to be a heal that they used on the party member, based on how a second lily glows upon its use. Also seems to activate the previous used buff, judging by the effect the WHM gets after its use.

- Aero and Stone: This one is not very surprising. More regular damage spells, yay. Obviously does not affect the UI.

- Unknown Skill #3: While very shiny, it does not seem to be a heal, as it does not cause a lily to appear on the new UI. I would assume it is a buff of some sort, but I can not really tell what it does, other than apply to the WHM and its party member.

- Unknown Skill #4: Has a watery appearance/sound, and does not seem to be a heal. Again, it does not give a lily upon use, so my assumption is that it is a buff.

- Unknown Skill #2 (again): Only this time does not seem to be affected by any of the buffs? Activates third lily.

- Cure 3: Here is where I find it interesting. Not looking closely, it looks like just a normal Cure 3. Just going to assume it works the same as our current Cure 3 does. UI is full, so a forth lily does not appear.

- Unknown Skill #5: Looks to be a shield of some sort, used by consuming the three lilies from the UI. Going to assume it is an aoe shield based from what I have seen from the benchmark and my own theory.

- Rescue: Don't think I need to go over this. Others have translated its description.

Here, I have a theory... Cure 3 is an aoe heal (duh), and when you look closely at the striking dummy, you can see it being affected by the use of Cure 3. The very same thing happens when the WHM uses the "skill number 5", and it only happens during these two.

What I'm thinking is that due to one of the buffs the WHM uses, their aoe healing/shielding abilities affects the enemy in some way. Granted, we do not see any aoes pre-damage abilities (that I could see at least), so for all we know it could just be a passive... But I'm just going to assume one the two abilities (3 & 4) have something to do with it. I do not know what it could be doing to the dummy, but it seems pretty promising that WHMs could be getting some form of utility after all.


Okay, Kairi... You went through all that... why?

Well... with Scholar and Astro, we see a lot more animations we are familiar with or are easy to read visually (at least in my opinion). As a result, I feel we can get more of an idea what is in store for them, even without knowing additional effects. White Mage on the other hand, is more difficult to read. While, yes, most of the shown skills look like ordinary healing spells, there could be a lot more to them than we can even see. There could be hidden effects in their spells. I truly feel White Mages will be getting some form of utility that is tied to their healing spells. While we don't quite know what it is or how much utility it'll get, we do see something worth noting in the job trailer. Who knows, I could also be very very wrong. Wouldn't be the first time LOL.

Keep in mind, though, we do not see every new skill, and that they mixed some new role actions into the previews. And while WHM is losing some of its actions to the role system, I don't think the devs would take them away if they weren't planning to give something back in return. At the same time, they are also trying to avoid overwhelming people with too many actions. While you can clearly see what ones were put into the role actions, what we don't see are the ones from all jobs that were taken away all together or fused together. I'm positive WHM isn't the only one that's losing actions.


But Kairi, why would they hide WHM utility like that?

Well, if I am right in regards to tying White Mage utility into their healing spells, it wouldn't be as easy to show off in something like the job trailer than it is with Astro and Scholar. We already know what their utility is, and because of that, we know what to look for and can draw better conclusions. White Mage hasn't had any true form of utility (at least not much of it), so its easy for us to miss. Having special effects tied to their healing would make it even more difficult to see.

Finally, even if the devs were intentionally hiding WHM utility, why would that surprise you? They are the biggest trolls. They love to give very little details to make their player base squirm and grow rampant with theories/speculations. I mean with how sensitive this issue is with a lot of people, I'm not surprised. I bet the devs are having a lot of fun reading the salt in the forums with things like this. I know I do lol.