Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Zumi]

WHM is fine it has bigger stronger heals, better aoe range. It doesn't need to be a cookie cutter copy of AST or SCH. Not everything needs to have utility spells. WHM is suppose to be the pure healer job and that was it looks like they are going for.

My group we cleared A12S pretty early on and we had a WHM as a main healer and I was Paladin. People have said that both PLD and WHM were bad yet we still cleared savage many months ago.

[Lunaxia]

snip

WHM is (...to a degree) "fine" now, but it won't be in Stormblood.

And players don't want "doable" as far as raids go, they want something at least semi-competitive instead of being greeted by communal groaning and "uhh can you switch?" whenever they try to use their main job.

[Urthdigger]

WHM is fine it has bigger stronger heals, better aoe range.

The problem is, if you actually look at the tooltips for WHM you'll see we really don't get either. We get no new AoEs, period. Plenary Indulgence, due to it's requirements for confession stacks on the players healed, means it will only actually heal the tank, and only for as much as a cure II at MOST. Other than that we have a buildup for lowering the cooldown on our oGCD heals... that automatically gets consumed when you use ANY of them, which means you're not actually going to see 3 lillies unless you avoid using your oGCD abilities (and if you're sitting on them then what's the point of a cooldown reduction?)

Not only do we only see our direct heals boosted (rather than the regens we're known for), but it's boosted in a manner that doesn't seem to actually help anyone.

[Fynlar]

I think it was pretty clear what he meant, even through the hyperbole, but as you wish.

You know what they say about assumptions, right?

I honestly do think people playing it for any reason, even outside of savage content, are making a mistake.

^ case in point.

Sure, people may enjoy the theme of a role, but at what point does it become something that should be actively discouraged? If Cure and Cure II were only 100 and 200 potency, would you still insist that people should be able to play WHM? Is playing as a class instead a perfectly valid way to play the game, simply because people may prefer the class's lore?

The fact that you have to exaggerate like that to make your point shows that the current situation really is not as bad as you (and most people here) are making it out to be. Maybe it sucks for the raider crowd, but the raider crowd is not everyone. I'm all for things being fixed, but telling people they shouldn't play a job just because it might not perform in the aspects of the game you like (because nevermind what they like; that's not important, right?) is uncalled for.

MMO=/= Fighting Games.

The overarching mentality is still exactly the same, and definitely comparable here. You have people who want to play the character/class they like, and then you have blowhards saying nothing should be played except the statistically "best" ones and that the rest may as well not even exist. Threads like this one are making it very clear on which side of the line people lie.

Correct me if I am wrong but personal skill and knowledge of a characters moveset weigh heavily.

Of course it does, which is why someone might still perform better on a class like WHM despite SCH/AST being statistically/capably superior. That or they just might *GASP* like it better.

[Keridwyn]

Of course it does, which is why someone might still perform better on a class like WHM despite SCH/AST being statistically/capably superior. That or they just might *GASP* like it better.

See you should have quoted the whole of my statement. Personal skill cannot give a class the utility they lack in their base code.

That is the point many WHM mains are arguing and why the ones that do perform at competitive levels are worried about further exclusion.

Not a raider or an overachiever myself but I do feel that my main is now lacking compared to the other classes in my role. I like it, I will play it, but that doesn't change the truth.

[TheAngelneer]

The fact that people have stated a few times that they never case Cure I at all, tells me that people are aren't playing it the way it's intended to be played.
(…)
The intended gameplay is "what is the best thing to cast" not "what do I need to keep pressing" like a DPS.

There is not a single place or time where it was implied that the "correct" way of playing WHM is by mainly using Cure and Cure II. In fact, I say that the skills you get from your Job say the exact opposite.

The first thing you get as a WHM is a new and shiny cooldown, Presence of Mind. You get 5 whole levels to experiment and learn from it, how it can be used in a pinch for fast healing or how it can be used for a great DPS burst. With a 150s cooldown you can use it every other pull and since there is no dfficulty spike from level 29 to 30+ you quickly realize you don't need to sit on this cooldown for emergency healing, but should make full use of it to extend your capabilities.

Soon after you get something that is game changing and gives WHM their own identity: Regen. Suddenly trash mobs damage is way easier to handle; you soon realize you can toss a Regen on a DPS if they are in range for a full heal for a Cure 1 but you expect them to take a bit more damage in the near future, saving you precious GCDs to focus on the tank or other thing that needs your attention. Most importantly, if you were still afraid of unleashing Presence of Mind full potential now you can do it even more safely with your HoT to back you up.

What comes up next? Divine Seal. Now you have a tool to make your very efficient HoT even more powerful! Not only this is a step up from what you could do previously, but now you can also use this to reliably pick the tank back up from a lower health %, which means you can spend more time in Cleric Stance. And don't forget this is on a short 60s cooldown, you can use this every freaking pull! Why would you even sit on it for emergency only?

By this point your playstyle as a WHM is starting to consolidate. You have learnt that your HoT is very powerful and versatile, you understand that you have a skill you can use every pull to make your HoT even more powerful and let's you stay on cleric longer and you have worked out this interaction to make a better use of Presence of Mind.

And then BOOM, you have Holy. Holy (hah, get it?) shit! It hits like a truck, costs a butload of MP and has a heavy cast and recast time. First thing that crosses your mind? PRESENCE OF MIND THIS THING! You know how to do it by this point! And you know what? It even makes things SAFER and EASIER by stun locking the mobs, that is some HEAVY synergy right there. The game TRAINED you to do this by this point. You know what else you already have to help you with that MP cost and aggro you are generating with all this? Shroud of Saints. You can even open your rotation by Swiftcasting Holy for an early stun.

With Benediction you can be sure you can keep the tank up and running even if you get too greedy with the Holys. By this point you also get Medica II, extending your HoT capabilities for single target to AoE and it even stacks with Regen for double MP and GCD efficiency.

Asylum expands your AoE HoT capabilities letting you better cover the entire party AND the tank who can now stack the effects of 3 HoT that can all be augmented by Divine Seal. As if this is not enough, you can still stun things with Holy so you can DROP. THE. DEEPS. (drop them even more when Stone III and Aero III make their way to your skillbars).

Assize has multiple utilities, it helps you keeping your MP up and you can both use on Cleric to push more damage and give you more Holy sustain with the extra MP or drop cleric for some instant AoE healing when you know a moderate party-wide hit is coming up.

Tetragrammaton completed your WHM kit by giving you access to a powerful instant and MP free heal on a relatively short cooldown, it has a butload of applications and is best used whenever you can.

All of this and the only thing that Cure/Cure II got is rewarding you for not wasting your MP by using Cure when really needed and most of the time only Cure II when Free Cure procs. And still you say the "right" way for playing WHM is tossing all that aside and rely on Cure and Cure II.

If a WHM's opening move is to cast regen on the tank followed by Medica II and then DPS'ing for 21 seconds, that WHM is not playing the way Yoshi-P intended, and thus they will not have time to recover from mistakes due to CS.

This is not even how CS works. If you were DPS’ing for 21 seconds you can INSTANTLY drop CS and go back to healing. Are you really this detached from reality? And I just made a very good case on why this “Yoshi-P intended way” you like to spew around so much finds no confirmation whatsoever on how WHM is designed.

As it is, with the DF, there four kinds of parties:

This was covered by Skyrior.

The most obvious way to play WHM is simply:
Who is bleeding? Nobody? Can you cast Stoneskin on someone? Can you throw up a DoT?

This is already wrong. Casting Stoneskin like that is terribly inefficient on both an MP or GCD standpoint. You can heal for more than 10% health and using less MP with a single Cure or better yet with a Regen. Battle Stoneskin in 90% of the cases is only good for pre-emptive shielding when a big hit is coming.

Also, "can you throw up a DoT"? You should be upkeeping your DoTs as much as possible and not pondering about throwing up a DoT every once in a while.

Tank is bleeding. Cast Cure I
Tank is still bleeding. Cast Cure I
Tank has lost half it's HP. Cast Cure II
Tank isn't recovering HP fast enough. Cast Cure II, then regen
If the tank is still loosing HP at this point, Benediction and Tetra are the last available options. If you've blown the CD's on them, then you're just going to have to use Cure II spam since you can't stack regen.

You should start by using a Regen, and not using it if you can’t keep up with Cures exactly because Regen pays off over time. The sooner you get it up the more you get out of it. The tank will bleed less, you will need to cast fewer Cures, save GCDs, save MP and be a better WHM overall. If you are doing your job right you don’t even need to worry about the tank bleeding on a mob until they are immune to the Stun effect of your Holy spell.

DPS is bleeding. Will they survive 5 seconds? If Yes, keep healing the tank
DPS is still bleeding. Cast Cure or Cure II whichever fits their damage

Same from above. DPS is bleeding, will survive 5 seconds and there is possibly more damage incoming? Fling a Regen if it is only one person, go ahead and Medica II if you need that on multiple targets. Now you don’t have to worry about using multiple Cure/Cure II spells to keep the rest of the party healthy. (and don’t forget Asylum!)

99% of the time, the Tank is always bleeding once Stoneskin is dropped. If you are constantly blowing the CD's on everything, then you don't have those tools when you need them.

It will be bleeding 99% of the time if you don’t use your damn HoT skills. Do you see the pattern here? It is obvious that you don’t have the slightest clue of how to use your HoT and thus get scared of using Cooldowns that will be up, if not at every single pull, every other pull.

Your WHM game is limited, poorly executed and poorly thought out, not ours.

What I'm hearing from the raiders is "don't take my lazy healing away" when they've been the ones accusing WHM's of being lazy by not DPS'ing. So pretty much every complaint about changes to WHM stems from this lazy healing technique of casting only Medica II and Regen on everyone instead of Cure.

Only lazy person I see here is you. You are too lazy to think about how WHM skills interact with each other and make WHM much greater than Cure/Cure II. The party wide healing potential you can bring to the table while maintaining high personal DPS is no joke, but instead of learning that you prefer to just repeat your “Yoshi-P intended” delusional talk.

[KisaiTenshi]

Only lazy person I see here is you. You are too lazy to think about how WHM skills interact with each other and make WHM much greater than Cure/Cure II. The party wide healing potential you can bring to the table while maintaining high personal DPS is no joke, but instead of learning that you prefer to just repeat your “Yoshi-P intended” delusional talk.

If only 2% of the players are clearing the raids, then clearly 2% is not the majority of the player base. They aren't clearing them because of this toxic attitude by players touting the BiS gear and one-true-dps-rotation, and bullying players who aren't playing their way. The forum isn't even representative of the majority of the playerbase, just the loudest.

As evidence from this thread, and a several other threads, you all would rather try an insult and bully me than actually maybe consider that there is another way to play, and that is what Yoshi-P encourages.

[fantasticm]

Do not reply to the bait!

Think instead about happy things, like SE buffing WHM in 4.1 to actually not-trash-tier. SE if you are reading this... PLEASE. Give us back our tool kit.

[TheAngelneer]

As evidence from this thread, and a several other threads, you all would rather try an insult and bully me than actually maybe consider that there is another way to play, and that is what Yoshi-P encourages.

This is some obvious low quality trolling right here.

I already made my point and I made it very clear. Don't expect me to give you further attention.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

WHM is fine it has bigger stronger heals, better aoe range. It doesn't need to be a cookie cutter copy of AST or SCH. Not everything needs to have utility spells. WHM is suppose to be the pure healer job and that was it looks like they are going for.

My group we cleared A12S pretty early on and we had a WHM as a main healer and I was Paladin. People have said that both PLD and WHM were bad yet we still cleared savage many months ago.

Diurnal and Nocturnal Sect have 15% increased healing potency.
Earthly Star has a base potency of 150/650 to damage and healing respectively; 200/900 if executed ten seconds after the initial cast.
Plenary Indulgence necessitates Confession stacks, which only trigger through inefficient Cure spam. Meanwhile, Lady of Crowns converts fodder cards into a 500 potency heal.

Although White Mage narrowly retains its aoe healing dominance, Astro pulls ahead as the better single target healer. Unfortunately, the Lily mechanic actively punishes you for utilizing aoe heals since you only get procs through Cure and Cure II. So, pray tell, what part of this is "fine"? No one is arguing White Mage won't be able to clear Savage. It's simply woefully inferior to Astro and Scholar. For a job that is supposedly a pure healer, it doesn't even heal as efficiently as its counterparts. That's how poorly implemented things are. People aren't upset because White Mage isn't raid optimal. They are upset because there is literally nothing White Mage offers that both Scholar and Astro don't somehow do better.