Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Zhexos]

Greetings,

As some of you may have noticed, we have consolidated the white mage feedback threads into one location, so we can keep track and collect valuable information to relay to the development team.

We appreciate your understanding, and please continue to share your feedback on this thread.

Thank you.

[Shurrikhan]

Greetings,

As some of you may have noticed, we have consolidated the white mage feedback threads into one location, so we can keep track and collect valuable information to relay to the development team.

We appreciate your understanding, and please continue to share your feedback on this thread.

Thank you.

Any chance that you guys may be able to develop a system for sub-threads on these forums?

It seems like it'd only be harder to track useful information when forcing a collision between 5 different threads...

[Edgedy]

First thank you for the information regarding the new job system, there is a lot of positive feedback that makes it so that we're very excited about the expansion.

With a closer look to the synergy between the healers and the tanks we would appreciate if you addressed one issue however.

There is a lot of concern over job roles and identities, and the lost skills that became cross role as a result of that. Would it be possible to perhaps address the loss of skills primarily for White Mage?

I see a lot of issues with the skill count just from the standpoint of 26 skills for white mage, and 29 skills overall for Scholar and Astrologian. Wouldn't the best issue be to expand the number of cross class skills for White Mage and Paladin?

If you could for example given them 7 skills instead of the standard 5, it would give them more functionality and also address the loss of abilities they used to have. I hope that you can pass this information on to the Stormblood development team as I feel it is a prudent solution to a problem which would help to address the concern the community is currently having with both of the jobs.

The disparity gets even worse when you realize that those counts are as favorable to WHM as possible, just counting the native hotbar abilities.

SCH has an additional 7 abilities (Embrace, Fey Covenant, Fey Illumination, Whispering Dawn, Silent Dusk, Fey Caress, Fey Wind) from their pets. And if you want to be pedantic, another 8 on top of that (the pet placement/stance actions: Away, Heel, Place, Stay, Guard, Steady, Sic, Obey). Though only about two of the latter see any use in combat (Place and Heel).

AST has an additional 9 abilities from Cards. The six regular Draw options (Bole, Balance, Arrow, Spear, Spire, Ewer) and the three Royal Road actions (Extend, Enhance, Expand) along with possible the Lord/Lady actions. All of which are iconic-enough that even non-ASTs probably could tell you what they do.

WHM has two abilities that were widely considered candidates for pruning (Repose and Fluid Aura) and that aren't readily-viewable as "useful" with the content design to date (Fluid Aura was widely used as a damaging oGCD but that bit's gone).

I mention all those specific abilities because they give Scholar and Astrologian different ways to affect the outcome of the battle.

When you combine everything they can do to somehow affect the course of battle in Job-identity-reinforcing ways, it gets even more stark:

SCH has 39 abilities in practice (counting Embrace once, counting Heel and Place)
AST has 39 or 41 abilities depending on how you count them, just looking at things that affect the flow of combat
WHM has 26, arguably 24.

For an expansion that was supposed to be about reinforcing Job Identity and giving people options that made the Jobs feel unique and interesting to play, WHM really got the short end of the stick.

Thank you.

[Bill_Murray]

Greetings,

As some of you may have noticed, we have consolidated the white mage feedback threads into one location, so we can keep track and collect valuable information to relay to the development team.

We appreciate your understanding, and please continue to share your feedback on this thread.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to us! We hope that our feedback will persuade the devs to reexamine WHM and make some needed improvements. Thank you!

[Mooserocka33]

As long as Astro has 20 percent balance and can heal as much as whm with 10 percent bonus to sects, whm will never be needed for raids again there is no reason. Whm is useless now. Astro can heal better then whm or sch heals and sheilds are better. Whm is not balanced at all. Astro will always be taken over whm until I hate to say it you make whm as needed.

[Olipopsicle]

Just make Stone have a chance to give confession stacks to a random ally. That way, WHMs can heal by dpsing!

[niwaar]

As some of you may have noticed, we have consolidated the white mage feedback threads into one location, so we can keep track and collect valuable information to relay to the development team.

We appreciate your understanding, and please continue to share your feedback on this thread.

Good to hear that you guys are taking our views into account.

I'll let the White Mages continue to give their opinions on White Mage specifics but I would like to express my concerns about the Healer Role skills in general. When compared to the Tank, Caster, Melee and Ranged Physical role skills there is such stark contrast its ridiculous. The three tank's all lost abilities that were part of their core kits. However for every loss of a Silence for PLD, it was given to the other two. Or for every loss of a Off GCD Stun from 2, the third received it. This is the philosophy that **SHOULD** have been used across all roles. Melee and Ranged lost core synergy and support abilities to the Role Ability list which allows all of those jobs to fill that synergy, thus opening up more group compositions. This too was good. Even casters received abilities that were niche but only 1 of the 2 casters had and now both of them do. These are once again the types of abilities that SHOULD be in the cross role skills lists.

However, the Healer Role Abilities literally steals the same/similar skills from all three Healer Jobs just to force them to take them back. Esuna/Leeches/Exalted Detriment is the biggest culprit here, but the Healing Potency abilities of both WHM and AST were removed and given back via the Role Skills while the SCH remains. I include the Enmity Reduction/Mana Refresh skills of Shroud of Saints and Luminious Aether here even though SCH does not have either skill, but because of Aetherflow and the fact that SCH enmity is split between the Player and the Pet they do not require the skill. All the while leaving all three healers with flavour versions of Raise.

In general it feels like the development team could not think of any useful/interesting cross role abilities for healers and decided they'd just take away abilities all 3 jobs had and replace them with flavorless versions. Thus making the cross-role abilities less of a choice, more of a forced meta and completely unfun. Unless there is no need to cleanse, the majority of healers will be forced into a meta of Protect, Esuna, Lucid Dreams, Swiftcast + 1 more. Please consider putting back the flavored Cleanses, Shroud/Luminous Aether, and Divine Seal/Synastry as the Job abilities they are in 3.x. Even if we had 7 or 8 choices instead of the 10 most other classes have it would be a huge step forward for the class. Its simply UNFUN for you to remove abilities everyone already has in order to force them to choose them.

TLDR: Don't "steal" existing abilities all 3 jobs have in order to force them to take them back with role abilities.