Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Kopela]

I think I'll add my voice to the cacophony and help show the devs how many of us disagree with this.

I see a lot of people talking about adjusting the system to work better and frankly make some kind of sense but I don't think that is the solution. The biggest problem with the changes to WHM by miles is the addition of RNG and no version of this class will work as long as it stays. Honestly, this is game design 101 stuff. People need to feel like they have control over the outcome of a game for it to be fun (they don't actually need to have much control they just need to feel they have control.) It is hard to feel good about winning at something if you don't feel like your actions were the cause of said victory. Aside from how RNG removes a sense of accomplishment from player victory it also removes player control over the outcome of the game.

Take Bingo a game that is basically all RNG, have you ever heard of a super talented pro-Bingo player? No, because the game plays itself. If you do well at Bingo its because you got lucky not because you acted in a way that helped you win the game. Now think about Chess, a game that is all skill and no luck, pro-Chess players are well respected because people know that they worked hard and got good at the game. I know I feel way better when I win at chess than when I win at Bingo. The RNG added by SE makes white mage feel more like playing Bingo than Chess and that is a big problem. I would never argue that MMO's should be as skill-based as Chess, luck will always have a place in MMO's but skill should be way more important than luck (Dr. Richard Garfield has a great lecture on the luck-skill continuum if anyone is interested) This is to say nothing of the rewards for getting lucky that SE is giving us. People like Bingo despite it being luck based because when you win you get prizes people like chess because when you win you get a sense of accomplishment what does WHM get? A meager 20% oGCD reduction.

This is to say nothing of the problem with adding luck to a healer role which depends on predictability. I read a comment in this thread a while back that stated that the rest of the raid group was basically RNG because you couldn't predict their actions and frankly he was correct. Especially when it comes to DF/pug raiding your group represents a sort of RNG. Part of the role of a healer is to minimize that RNG as much as possible. Do you have a DPS that just can't seem to avoid that one tricky AOE? The healer's job is to make up for that unexpected problem and keep things predictable. It is awfully hard to keep things predictable when a healer can't even predict the effects of their own abilities.

Just some thoughts I have been having over the past few days I am dyslexic please be gentle

[koroko220]

snip

I agree with all of this. Ast having RNG for buffs is one thing.... but HEALING? That doesn't make any sense.

[Pharazon]

First I think the lily mechanic is a great way to start giving White Mages an identity rather than leaving them the bland baseline healer they are now. Both Astrologian and Scholar are defined by their take on random mechanics (cards and crits respectively) but the WHM has no defining mechanic.

Lilies as they are implemented now, take WHM in the direction of AST and SCH by adding in a random mechanic. This is counter to the idea of a “pure healer” as one would expect that healer to be the most consistent and predictable. That doesn’t inherently mean the mechanic has to be uninteresting though. If we had a more controlled manner of generating and manipulating lilies where our spells had synergy and interacted with each other, the class could be both straight forward, consistent and have more depth, which it desperately needs.

Below are a few of the changes I would make to carve out the WHM identity and create a more interesting and dynamic “pure” healer.

1. Regen should perform the same heal over time function that it does now, except when it expires it generates a lily. Now you would want to have a way to tune lily generation so having an internal cooldown of 6-10 seconds would mean staggering your “Regens” and managing when they expire to generate lilies would become part of optimizing your healing (depth). A variation on this would be to have a lily generated every X ticks that successfully heal a target (overheals wouldn't count).

2. Secret of the Lilly II should be moved from a chance on a crit to a mechanic that triggers when using an abilty that consumes three lilies. That way if you use the ability because you absolutely need to then no cooldown reduction but if you can hold out for the third lily (more predictable without the random aspect) then you get reduced cooldown on Assize and Asylum.

3. Divine Benison should move away from being a shied which has more SCH flavor. Instead having it be an ability that converts the next single attack on the target that does 25% or more of the targets health in damage to a damage over time effect that deals the same damage but over 10 seconds. This keeps the WHM more of a pure healer and makes logical sense with the HoT nature we are using as the identity of the WHM. It also removes some of the sting from having stoneskin removed just to be given a shield back that feels worse all around.

4. Utility should be added to WHM through the use of abilities when at max lilies. As example having Assize refresh all HoTs on party members in range, having Asylum split damage amoung those in its radius when cast at three lilies, or assize debuff all enemies hit when cast at max lilies. Things that are still very straight forward and have a low barrier to entry but have the ability to be min/maxed at higher levels of play.

5. The reward system of lilies needs to be addressed as well. Cooldown seems like a poorer option than having a percentage buff to spell speed. That way you could get to full lilies and then when dpsing you would be able to pump out more dps but have the lilies degrade after casting multiple non-healing spells. It then becomes a pro/con evaluation of how best to order the use of your abilities that use lilies because of your ability to generate them through regens you could set up to have a decent burn phase with smart play or a smaller burn phase while still being able to drop a 3 lily spell afterwards.

These are just some of my ideas that I feel would create a more interesting WHM with depth at all levels of play and better align with the stated design goals for WHM.

[rainblack]

Something to keep in mind as well from a playerbase standpoint is that the lily system is already useless BECAUSE of this pushback. Even if it turns out to have some hidden utility, whether WHM gets brought into raids isn't pure math. It comes down to whether people making parties in the party finder believe it's useful or not. Even if WHM did have some ability to compete with AST and SCH with this system, it needs to be changed because it's already been cemented as a broken system that doesn't contribute to raids, even before release. The problem isn't quite whether that's justified or not, it's whether it's going to happen anyway. And a 200-page thread about how it needs to be fixed suggests it's probably gonna happen anyway.

[OcieKo]

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.

Making progress in a decent direction, but having lilies only affect 1 skill would just be boring. Could be more interesting to have the OGCDs take down 1 lily at a time for that CDR. Basically making the subgame about maintaining the third lily as much as possible. Pretty much decentivizing spamming OGCDs in place of actual heals. Which would make something like, have 3 lily stacks, use Tetra 20% CDR lose 1 lily, cast some cures in between get lily back, use assize with 20% CDR being "good" play as opposed to have 3 lily stacks Use tetra for 20% CDR, then Assize for 10% CDR, and Asylum for 4% CDR being more "bad" play or for more emergency moments. Slightly more interesting way of handling it without removing the RNG and adding more control. Having Cure III, Medica I, and Medica IIs INITIAL heal have a chance to proc em seems reasonable, possibly capping at 1 lily per cast with a chance per hit to keep it from being abused to hard, say 3-5% per hit meaning a cap of 24-40% per cast.

Sorry, but having regens affect procs is asking for broken, would be the same if Diurnal ASTs regens were added to Bene 1/2s new synergy with Lightspeed, just broken. As an AST who mostly focuses on Diurnal, I already use my regens too much when their not needed, Im fairly certain I'd be better off using Bene 1 most of the time I use ABene on DPS, I just do it cause, i ta cast and forget. And from my experience waaay to many WHMs/ASTs cave into that inefficient playstyle too much, makes me die a little inside when I see WHMs using Medica II randomly before its HoT effect is mostly gone, if you have 9-28s left on Medica II use Medica 1, its better Im serious 100 more potency and a lot less MP (said to hopefully avoid the misunderstanding of refreshing it early when mechanics are about to want it, i.e. Ravana flying swords phase). Seems common to neglect here that a major factor healer MP efficiency has to with the difference between effective healing and overhealing, not just time between having to heal. Regens on targets that dont need a majority of the healing provided are EXTREMELY inefficient, if MP management comes to be more important, as its currently feeling like, in 4.X a lot of healers are up for a rude awakening, and some of us multi-game veteran healers are gunna be struck with some serious nostalgia.

Benison, cant argue it feels bad in its current implementation, both requiring and consuming 3 lilies is rough, require 3 or consume all but req at least 1 would be enough in the current system. With the roughrework i made a pass at earlier, not sure, let a few more consistent WHMs play with that.

Confession and Plenary Indulgence: biggest oroblem this is having right now seems to be a fixation on calling it an AOE heal. When I initially heard about it, it struck me more as an anytime Synergy from AST great for thing like when both tanks are actively tanking, otherwise an extra tank specific tetra. And simply has an added bonus of possibly healing a few others, since I beliebe Confession already has a stack limit in place, could use a more reliable proc chance. But removing the fixation on it being a "heal everyone AOE" may help the impression of it.

[Mahkii]

Something to keep in mind as well from a playerbase standpoint is that the lily system is already useless BECAUSE of this pushback. Even if it turns out to have some hidden utility, whether WHM gets brought into raids isn't pure math. It comes down to whether people making parties in the party finder believe it's useful or not. Even if WHM did have some ability to compete with AST and SCH with this system, it needs to be changed because it's already been cemented as a broken system that doesn't contribute to raids, even before release. The problem isn't quite whether that's justified or not, it's whether it's going to happen anyway. And a 200-page thread about how it needs to be fixed suggests it's probably gonna happen anyway.

I have faith that if SE fixes WHM, top raiders will know it and show it and that will trickle down to the rest of the player base.

[rainblack]

I agree that's probably mostly the case, but I think any fix is going to have to be at least a minor thematic breakaway since traditionally stigma like this builds a lot of community inertia. an effect change or ability replacement would probably go a bit further than 5% potency changes or increasing the lily proc change, for example.

[Jade3173]

after read (too many) pages of this thread, all I have to say is that WHM didn't lose Shroud of Saints, it gained Lucid Dreaming. AST is the one that lost their MP regain tool. Shroud, Aether, and Lucid all reduces threat, all have refresh of 80 the difference is the duration between skills, 15s/24s/21s respectively. Yes it sucks that WHM lost skills to the Role section, but that's not a bad thing. What makes it a bad is that they got nothing to replace it. WHM lost Divine Seal which is a Job skill but SCH lost Leeches which is a Job skill as well. Also, SCH had to waste a Job skill on Leeches before. Do agree that RNG for what is supposed to be the core of new mechanics on a class that had little RNG before sucks. Lilies problems aren't so much the proc rate as the reward is simply pointless. I'd rather them keep the proc rate if the effect was at least something you would, ya know, use

[OcieKo]

Snip.

First off lime to say, it was nice seeing some ideas that aren't making lilies a boring 100% reliable mechanic, also rather well concepted.

Out of order based on personal preference and amount of constructive input.

#3 is just plain a good idea, itd pretty much make it the go to tank buster softener for fresh progression and under geared tanks.

#1 also a good train of thought, needs some more work to prevent abuse tho. And tbh Id be happy if AST/SCH got something along the same thought train. Diurnal has the same issue as WHM in how to prevent someone just refreshing Regen/ABene on everyone. SCH/Nocturnal with their Galvanize/Barrier being fully broken. A little bit more fleshing out and this is a great motivator to play more efficiently.

#5 I think the reason they focused on CDR for WHMs mechanic benefit is because its what the WHM has in spades over the other two healers, a wide abundance of OGCD heals you want available. AST had 2 SCH has 1. (Didnt include lustrate since it really doesnt have its own CD)

#2 I think their goal here was simply to give a little extra for when you crit, cause crits are fun to see, and getting a little more with em just makes it better. Hell I was excited to see a 22k Bene 2 crit earlier this week, and that was a happy moment. Was mostly overheal, but still was like ooh 22k crit.

#4 While could be viewed as interesting, it would probably start feeling heavy, constricted, and required in some cases. IMHO may make some of the current disagreements with the system worse as opposed to better.

Have a post on the previous page on some other possible improvements to the system, if you can try working with what youve started and I contributed and see if you can make it better than both. Theres a few other good ideas flowing around as well, barring the practically remove the mechanic and give us a flat #s buff 100% of the time. If a good solution for your first point can be found, itd negate much of my HoTs based issues from that post.

[rainblack]

Honestly my only real guess is that the idea is WHM can take over so much of the healing that it contributes party utility and avoids overhealing by letting the other healer almost entirely switch over to DPS/Utility stuff. I don't know enough about AST/SCH, but will it have any increased utility if it doesn't have to spend as much time healing? WHM could actually work with the "pure healer" concept if it's designed to solo heal most of the fight and the other healer only needs to tag in for healing in crisis situations or larger attacks.

I'm probably missing something really basic, but at this point all I can think of is WHM+Lilies is designed for heavy sustained healing now (via constant cure1/2 spam, shielding/plenary applying after heal spam, and lily cooldown reduction pulling your next healing burst closer by 10 seconds or so) and the only way I can think of to make that work is it's meant to free up the other healer long enough (i.e. 90% of the fight) to do double its DPS/Util.

Mostly I just feel like it's fundamentally designed to be constantly overhealing if it's going to require cure1/2 spam alongside us keeping our HoTs, so the only way I can really think of it working is if the other healer has a benefit to WHM covering for half its healing output.