Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Yallaid]

I'm recalling a certain situation.

Oh yes. 3.0 astrologian. In before that repeats, but for white mage. Then again, I'm still rolling with Yoshida's "please trust me" on white mage for Stormblood.

i really think just doing something about the Cure I/II proc limitation would be enough. I'll leave the raid meta balancing to others to let them figure out the perfect potency values for everyone, but the reliance on hard casted Cure I and Cure II's is so bizarre that it's going to drive people away from the job quick.

[JunseiKei]

i really think just doing something about the Cure I/II proc limitation would be enough. I'll leave the raid meta balancing to others to let them figure out the perfect potency values for everyone, but the reliance on hard casted Cure I and Cure II's is so bizarre that it's going to drive people away from the job quick.

It depends on what the fights themselves will bring to the table and how able, or the more likely scenario, how willing, players will be to adapting.

Yoshida had the same spiel with WAR back in 2.0 and it wasn't long before they were forced to change it since they were in fact completely detached from the reality of the situation.

Dunno what was said then. Didn't care about meta or any of that back then. Too many people were still absolutely terrible at the game. The only thing I can recall back then was Yoshida saying players are playing warrior incorrectly and the sentiment sort of being echoed at the start of 3.0 when people were complaining the stuff was too hard and what they got back was "get good."

I'm just waiting and seeing before jumping on any bandwagons.

[Vhailor]

i really think just doing something about the Cure I/II proc limitation would be enough. I'll leave the raid meta balancing to others to let them figure out the perfect potency values for everyone, but the reliance on hard casted Cure I and Cure II's is so bizarre that it's going to drive people away from the job quick.

I think this was SE's very half-assed attempt at solving the damage-dealing expectations in regards to WHM. The only way to do that was to move away from WHM's emphasis on HoT spells, because by their very nature, those leave you free to do other stuff - namely deal damage.

By linking a lot of our new toys to spamming non-HoT spells, they'll take away a lot of the perceived 'idle time' that WHMs previously had to contribute some DPS to the party. Which, honestly, is likely to cost us damage in the long run. I haven't worked out the numbers, but I'd be surprised if the RNG-fueled Lily / Confession system paired with Assize spam actually improved our damage over continuing to ignore Cure / Cure II in favour of Regen, and spamming Stone IV the rest of the time. That said, it'll still be close enough for people to not bitch about people who stupidly maintain that healers should never cast a non-healing spell ever.

I also agree with your sentiments, by the way - this is likely to drive people away from the job. I long ago decided to hold off on purchasing Stormblood until I saw the combat changes go live, and played around with them a bit. It's already looking like I'll need to find a different main, and considering WHM is my favourite job to play right now, it's quite likely that Stormblood will usher in a less-fun gameplay experience for me. Whether or not I can live with the changes or find a new entertaining job to play post-4.0 will go a long way toward determining if I continue to play FFXIV.

What a shame.

[Granyala]

By linking a lot of our new toys to spamming non-HoT spells, they'll take away a lot of the perceived 'idle time' that WHMs previously had to contribute some DPS to the party.

Doesn't make sense.
If no healing is required, why would people spam cure for them lilies? They'll throw stones just as before.
If healing is required, you heal with the appropriate tools, same as before.

3 lilies is 20% of a given cooldown. Sure, it's nice, but it's nothing "game breaking" to necessitate maximum cure spam at all costs.

[Vhailor]

Doesn't make sense.
If no healing is required, why would people spam cure for them lilies? They'll throw stones just as before.
If healing is required, you heal with the appropriate tools, same as before.

3 lilies is 20% of a given cooldown. Sure, it's nice, but it's nothing "game breaking" to necessitate maximum cure spam at all costs.

As I said later in my post, I doubt that we'll actually get a damage boost from going down this path. What I also pointed out, though, is that this system will "bring up the floor" for lazy / new healers who are under the misconception that the way to play WHM involves constant healing and no damage dealing.

I personally expect to almost entirely ignore the Lily / Confession system unless I'm in one of those rare fights that actually requires a sustained focus on healing. For the people not in this boat, though, these new mechanics place a strong emphasis on spamming Cure / Cure II, with an easier-to-manage boost to their damage thrown in as a cherry on top.

[Granyala]

I personally expect to almost entirely ignore the Lily / Confession system unless I'm in one of those rare fights that actually requires a sustained focus on healing.

That would be my guess as well. Nice bonus if it happens, but nothing I'm going to try to force.

[Yallaid]

That would be my guess as well. Nice bonus if it happens, but nothing I'm going to try to force.

i mean, that's sort of awful isn't it? So in return for losing 5 unique skills to becoming Role Actions that I have to put on my hotbar I get a new system that I'm supposed to ignore. Unless it goes off in which case, yippee a sort of Medica or a shield or some shorter cooldowns!!

?

[Granyala]

i mean, that's sort of awful isn't it? So in return for losing 5 unique skills to becoming Role Actions that I have to put on my hotbar I get a new system that I'm supposed to ignore. Unless it goes off in which case, yippee a sort of Medica or a shield or some shorter cooldowns!!
?

Not really.
I don't define a class as good because it has "OMG so many buttons".
I define a class as good if the gameplay feels fluid and fun.
While I would agree that AST and SCH both bring far too much to the table compared to plain old WHM, I do think we have all the tools we actually need to do our job.

I am unsure why they thought RNG was good for lilies...

Simple: they wanted to change things up and wanted to move away from 100% predictable cooldowns.