Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Vexander]

Disclaimer: I do hereby acknowledge that nothing is set in stone until Stormblood launches, that numbers and skills may be tweaked between now and then, and that the Developers have no doubt done their best to design all Jobs to perform in the environment of Stormblood functionally well, and with different approaches to the encounters and mechanics we shall face. I also acknowledge I am not an individual for numeric theory crafting or pitching, ‘Balanced,’ numbers, and do ask those who read this post to forgive any numerical value or percentage that would be, ‘Overpowered.’

The above having been said, from the comments of those whom played White Mage during the media tour to those of our community of players whom have come to their own conclusions from data currently available, it seems a majority will agree that the state of White Mage come 4.0 will be a cause for concern. This seems to stem from three issues at the moment.

The Identity of the White Mage
The New Resource: Lilies
The New Skills

In an attempt to provide constructive feedback, I intend to address the above three issues from my personal point of view, as well as offer a series of suggestions to address them. They have largely been derived from the comments of numerous members of this community, and thus I do not claim any single idea below as my own, but rather, a collaboration I’ve strung together from the inspiration of others. My apologies if anyone should take offense or conclude the ideas to be terrible, I do confess to not having played White Mage since shortly after Heavensward launched, and so I do acknowledge I personally am out of touch with the Job’s needs at the present.

White Mage’s Identity: Scholar has its place among healers as the Damage Mitigation and Damage Dealing Healer. Using abilities such as Adloqium and Galvanize, they’re able to pro-actively heal through damage mitigation. Their fairies provide enough healing support that many Scholars spend time dealing damage instead. Astrologians have their place among healers for the sheer level of utility they bring through card buffs, and their adaptability in healing style by being able to direct heal, provide damage mitigation, and provide healing over time.

Solution: Appropriately, the identity for Scholar and Astrologian are based in their lore. Scholars supported the Nymian Marines in combat through strategic use of healing, shielding, and damaging. Astrologians, hailing from Sharlayan, provide a wide array of healing and utility, stemming from the in-depth studies conducted by the Sharlayans on the art of Astromancy.

The Identity of White Mage must come from the Lore as well. Being one of the most powerful forces of mortal-devised magic on the face of the planet, a White Mage’s Identity should be sheer, overwhelming power. Their abilities should always reflect this. While this will be addressed below, the best ways to translate this into gameplay will be abilities that affect the White Mage and their entire party, or go beyond the limits of other healers in balanced ways.

Lilies the Problem: RNG and Limited Design: The current design of the WHM resource mechanic of Lilies is deeply flawed in two major ways. The first, is RNG, something FFXIV has been praised for having as little of as needed for an MMO, and something no one wants to see with a healer. The second is the limited ways to cause Lilies to activate. Cure and Cure II are not skills used frequently in the course of play by White Mages, and given their high mana cost, they should not be given so much priority with White Mage gameplay. Lastly, the effect of the Lilies is incredibly underwhelming; a cooldown reduction on abilities White Mages will be using so frequently it’s unlikely they’ll ever have enough lilies up to benefit from the lily system.

Solution: Lilies need to live up to the White Mage identity of Power. These metaphysical manifestations of power should be born of a White Mage wielding their magic in different ways, and they should provide passive benefits akin to an Aura, and active benefits when consumed for a concentrated effect. To accomplish this, Lilies need to be reworked.

1) Remove RNG. Lilies should become active upon reaching a specific threshold involved with White Mage gameplay.

2) Each Lily needs to have its own identity based in an aspect of the White Mage’s gameplay.
2-a) Lily of Succor – Based on the White Mage’s Healing.
2-b) Lily of Asperity –Based on the White Mage’s Damaging.
2-c) Lily of Sanctuary – Based on a White Mage’s Mitigation.

3) Each Lily must provide a passive, constant buff when active, and the option to be consumed to provide the White Mage and their party with a greater, though temporary/instant effect.
3-a) Lily of Succor: Provide a party-wide passive HP/MP/TP restore every tick. Upon consumption, restores 10% of the party’s HP/MP/TP.
3-b) Lily of Asperity: Provide a party-wide passive DPS buff of 5%. Upon consumption, provides all party members with a 20% damage increase for 30 seconds.
3-c) Lily of Sanctuary: Provide a party-wide passive reduction in magical damage received by 10%. Upon consumption, removes 1 debuff from each party member.

4) Activation of Lilies should be dependent upon the benefit they provide.
4-a) Lily of Succor should require a set amount of healing applied to the party (50K, 100K, whatever is balanced)
4-b) Lily of Asperity should require a set amount of damage dealt by the White Mage (whatever is balanced)
4-c) Lily of Sanctuary should require a set amount of damage mitigated (whatever is balanced)

5) The Abilities to Consume Lilies should come with appropriately long cool downs to maintain balance with other Healing Jobs.

Unimpressive New Skills: The White Mage community has, for some time now, made known their sorrow at a lack of proper synergy with other classes through providing utility. While other healers provide this and in abundance, it has remained a glaring hole in the White Mage’s toolkit. The above changes to Lilies will hopefully more than rectify this, but with the loss of Stoneskin, White Mages need new Damage Mitigating skills, as well as new skills to properly flesh out their identity as the Powerful Healer.

Reflect. A new spell that will allow the White Mage to place a buff upon a party member or themselves, which will cause a portion of damage that would be dealt to the target to instead be redirected to the attacker. This reflected damage would count as mitigated damage for the sake of the Lily of Sanctuary.

Blink. A new spell that will be applied to the White Mage’s party, causing 5%-10% of damage received by an enemy to be avoided. This avoided damage would count as mitigated damage for the sake of the Lily of Sanctuary.

Arise. A long cooldown (30 minutes or even an hour), instant cast, no mana cost Raise that brings the target back at 100% HP/MP/TP, and without any weakened debuff, even if one already existed on the target.

Conclusion: The above changes would greatly help in not only giving White Mage a proper Identity as a Healer, one based in its lore, but would also bring sorely needed synergy to the Job as well. The numbers above would need proper balancing, but the concept behind the abilities would breathe new life and energy into the job and those whom love it, without threatening the identity and place of the two other healing jobs.

Thank you for Reading.