Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Cynfael]

It's definitely an outdated concept, but wouldn't the situation he presents with his samples be a good example of a sort of stress test situation? In such a situation, although there was an out, the White Mage solo healed, and solo healed sufficiently and effectively, using what he or she had in his or her disposal. In my mind, maybe that's not what you or I would be doing, but that sort of data sample might be what influences decisions like the ones made and put out for the lilies and confessions. I don't think it's wrong to bring it up, even if it isn't a direct solution to the lilies and confessions' lack of meaningful utility.

It's not irrelevant to bring it up; the reason why I don't weigh it very heavily, though, is that it doesn't uncover significant value in the new WHM Job mechanic.

It doesn't matter how many logs can be picked out to show examples of WHMs actually using a lot of Cure and Cure II since the main argument against Lilies being useful isn't addressed with this data. If anything these situations give us an idea of how lackluster Lilies look to be even when you do cast as many Cures as SE seems to think that WHMs do all the time.

The really scary thought is that Cure spam without consideration for overall efficiency really is how the majority of players do WHM, and that's why SE thinks this is a good idea, but is in effect proposing to pander to the lowest common denominator.

[Elamys]

Earthly Star has been brought up several times in this post, I did want to point out that it has a 60s CD so I don't know if it's necessarily the super OP heal people say it is. The potencies could maybe be nerfed a bit, but the CD seems to balance out the high potency. And, again, I do want Balance to be nerfed - partly because it discourages me, I feel, from using other cards because I'm tempted to Redraw for a Balance.

I don't think WHM is going to be as dead as people are insisting (claiming that they could delete the class right now and we'd lose nothing is sheer dramatics, as is claiming nobody will play WHM or take one - it's not like you're going to be unable to clear because you brought a WHM lol). Doesn't mean it can't get some changes. I main AST but I still love WHM.

If White Mage is going to get anything for utility, or a better mechanic, it needs to be unique, not a rehash of what SCH and AST have. A lot of people are asking for a spammable shield for WHM like Adloquium or Nocturnal Field; shields like that should remain with SCH and Noct AST (though Divine Benison should not require Lilies to use). Also, realistically, how often was Stoneskin used during a fight with its long cast time and high MP cost? People are also asking for party damage buffs similar to Balance or Fey Wind (even seen Balance asked to be cross role when cards are a key part of AST's identity). White Mage is a powerful healer with a lot of emergency tools that primarily uses HoTs; anything added should reinforce that.

Lilies/Confession need to have a higher proc chance and Lilies need to do something other than lower the cooldown on those spells. A potency increase on the spells affected would be a nice addition. Confession also needs to either have a longer duration or an additional effect (possibly both). Plenary Indulgence being an AoE heal centered around the people with Confession that heals regardless of if the people nearby have a stack or not would be nice. It could be an interesting way of getting heals to that BLM that insists on standing at max range. I don't think Lilies/Confession proccing off only Cure I/II is bad. You should not just be able to spam Medica to victory, Cure should have a place in your kit. A higher proc chance on Lilies could certainly help needing to "spam" Cure because you're fishing for one. I also think a CD that guarantees a Lily for every cast you make during its duration would be really nice. It seems they want WHM to have access to those tools more often as part of their playstyle (big bomb heals) and I don't necessarily think that's wrong.

As for utility, WHM doesn't necessarily need to bring a flat damage boost to everyone else to have something compelling. I like the idea of an improved Protect, as well as an inverse Cleric Stance (where you can't DPS in exchange for giving someone else greater damage capability). WHM is very capable of solo healing as well as doing crazy healer damage, so I think comps with 1 WHM, allowing for another DPS could be a thing, as well as comps where the WHM just sits there and does DPS. If that becomes the norm then they do not need much in the way of utility.

The final thing is the cross class abilities. It's pretty unfair that they have to use up all the slots to get back what they used to have, but it was also very annoying in the current setup to have to take so many things from WHM. All the healers should have options for what they get. Easy solutions to it:

-Give everyone back their class specific dispel (just adjust the level you get Leeches at) and remove Esuna from cross role;
-Give everyone Protect or some form of it (they seem to not like having the exact same abilities copied across classes with the same name and icon, which is fine I guess, just give them different names or something);
-Get rid of Largesse and give back Divine Seal, Synastry's potency increase, and (I'm assuming) Dissipation's potency increase.

This gives WHM back 3 of their abilities, freeing up space for 3 unique healer cross role abilities.

[Chiami]

As much as I like the idea, I'm sure it's a bad one. It is great for statics or FC groups, but it would be a nightmare for pick-ups and duty-finder groups. No one would rez because they would assume it's the WHM job to do it himself.

DF is 90%+ of the time 4-man content (the occasional, rare 8-man trial aside) with no one else who can raise the dead, so that falls to you as the WHM anyway by default. The "no weakness" part mainly comes into play for tactical choices in raid situations (while making WHM a bit stronger in that department for 4-man content).

[LazarusRising]

First Forum post incoming so forgive any mistakes! part 1/3

Secret of the lillies:
Cure 1 = 25% proc
Cure 2 = 45% proc
cure 3 = 65% proc

Due to wanting to keep the pure healer fantasy the lillies should instead of reducing cooldown of the OGCD's should instead give these a potency (healing and damage) increase. people are worried about the lack of utility the class will bring since it will lack say the damage of sch and buffs that an astro can bring but if a WHM could put out a steady increase of huge potency heals through OGCD's they can DPS more. Assize is already better due to mind being out damage scaling stat as well so being able to increase the potency of it through lillies would greatly help the whm out. While I am not one to crunch numbers, I wouldn't be able to tell you what potency increases per lilly should be without it becoming too powerful or too low. This would help consolidate the loss of Divine seal as a WHM only ability.

[LazarusRising]

WHM changes part 2/3
Divine Benison:
Reduce the cooldown of this 30-40 seconds OR up the the cooldown by a large amount and make it party wide, whm no longer have stone skin and lack the utility. To be able to put out a aoe shield for max HP over a crit adlo or noct shield would be a great inprovement to the whm. It helps the whole pure healer fantasy if the whm can deal with incoming large amounts of damage on the party through aoe mitigation and already strong aoe healing. If it was to still consume lillies it would work well with what was said above (find part 1/3) since it could consume those lillies to increase the potency of the shield.

[javid]

It doesn't matter how many logs can be picked out to show examples of WHMs actually using a lot of Cure and Cure II since the main argument against Lilies being useful isn't addressed with this data...

The really scary thought is that Cure spam without consideration for overall efficiency really is how the majority of players do WHM, and that's why SE thinks this is a good idea, but is in effect proposing to pander to the lowest common denominator.

I only agree that my post did not address the lackluster aspect of the lily system. It wasn't meant to defend it per say; it was meant to say IFFFFF SE WILL NOTTTT CHANGGE THEIR MIND ON MAKING WHM USE A RNG PROC SYSTEM BASED ON SKILLS USED.......no better set of skills would facilitate our proc rates (without massive abuse and inefficiency) like Cure I & Cure II.

And to your second point, the opposite would be worst!! The masses of WHM that don't know efficiency ( potency/gcd, potency/mp, effective potency/max potency) and spam cures in excess for no reason HOPING to proc a lil; would be in worst shape if lilies proc off of regen ticks or applications; they would abuse the mess out of over healing it wouldn't even be close!!

I gave the examples some pages back, if they made it based proc based on ticks vs cure applications, just in a matter of 30 sec (with a 2.0 GCD) you could wastefully spam 15 cures, 15 gcds! But in that same time frame you could have spam wastefully 12 regens and 1 medica II and got 133 ticks, 13 gcds!! Lastly if you did it based on applications of regen/medica II (without being able to override original application for additional proc) you'd run into clipping hurting ppl proc rate!


Again my I'm not defending there having to be a RNG Lily system that so underwhelming in its rewards (my guess is they made it so underpowered b/c of the potential confessions will have! And if we were in SB right now and doing all the fights I listed the number of cures present would facilitate confession proc rates out the noise! However bk to the lilies specifically, it can be that SE DOESN'T WANT PPL TO SPAM by under incentivizing the reward of getting 3 lilies; making it not worth the wasteful spam in anyway. So you'd play WHM mostly like you play it now and getting 3 lil procs would be something "cute", like "look I actually got 3 lilies!??", but even the worst of whm spammers would see 3 lilies soooo rarely (the stats are available on an early post)

[LazarusRising]

WHM changes part 3/3
Plenary Indulgence:
This could either become a AOE heal or a tank heal based on the situation. I feel it shouldn't have the confession stacks and should be reworked completely. Here is what i'd propose:

WHM is a hot healer for the most part, with medica 2, regen and Asylum to help them heal, So I propose that Plenary induglence gives that HOT's heal instantly, so what they would be healed for say over that 30 seconds could be "popped" for a burst heal instead. So a WHM could top everyone off with a medica 2 and when incoming aoe damage hits, the WHM could choose to loss that sustain for a quick burst heal thus consuming the regen or Medica 2 hot. This would allow the WHM some choice over how a situation can be played out. this should be affected by the lillies as well.

For instance in a dungeon group: Tank makes big pull, WHM can largesse into a regen, tank gets low, pops that plenary indulgence for the quick burst of healing.

[aimhigh]

Can we get a party max hp buff for white mage for them to heal more hp lol

[Saigo]

LazarusRising Or just stop popping idea of you hat with numbers taken out of nowhere with no idea of what could be balanced. ^_^

The only legitimate idea is to converte hot in direct heal saddly it's taken from another MMORPG and had nothing to do with what SE wants the WHM to be.

[Teykos]

I'm curious. Is there any improvement at all if the following got changed:
- The old oGCD stuff doesn't consume any lilies at all
- Divine Benison only eats up one lily.
- Lilies last one minute if not refreshed by a proc
- GCD reduction is thus based on total # of lilies active and applies to everything

So basically treat lilies as a more or less passive GCD reduction that you can sacrifice for up to three emergency stoneskins.