Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[OcieKo]

Pedantic point: Spear isn't at all ultimately useless, its only b/c we prefer Balance over everything, which renders other skills, like spear, "useless". But imagine if you absolutely couldn't get a balance but u had a spear and placed it on a mnk right before Internal release, howling fist, and Elixir field. That mnk would see 25% effective dps increase for those 3 abilities.


P.S. for the trolls: if this is making less and less sense to you maybe it's because this is going more and more over your head

So enjoy readin your posts javid.

But yes, while we ASTs call the Spear card the trash card, its not because we think its bad, its not and we know it, but that its simply too hard to make frequent use of. If were phishing for Balance or Ewer/Spire and Spear or Bole come up after redraw, well usually use it. While both Spear and Bole can be very powerful in the right situation, the opportunity cost of using it is vastly diminished by the whenever useful Balance options. If we use Balance (or even Arrow for that matter, tho some people oddly hate getting Arrow) its pretty much useful unless the boss is invuln/out of arena or the part/raid cant actively dps at the time when its used, so its priority weight is drastically higher.

On that not Ewer and Spire can be really nice after rezzing a physical DPS or a non-BLM caster (sorry not sorry BLM, I cant imagine a world where giving you single target Ewer is useful to either of us). But their value as Royal Road AOE modifier vastly outweighs such uses.

I think a lot of tanks don't realize that the amount of OCD instant cast 0 mp cost heals on WHM and SCH put AST in the dirt. WHM will grow in this department in 4.0 with cooldown reduction, plenary indulgence, and 3 min cooldown time on benediction.

I've seen Tanks go do some huge pull (some not popping proper cooldowns) and quickly die before an AST can do anything about it. Then, they think its the AST's fault because they're used to a WHM or SCH being able to baby sit them with the OCD heals. The other result in this scenario is AST is having to GCD more heals than a WHM or SCH and every GCD of heal is 1 less GCD of damage.

I have to agree that the cast frequency of Cure 1 and Cure 2 for skilled players is extremely low. That means the utilization of any new systems tied specifically to those 2 spells will also be as low, unless it is expanded to spells that we use with greater frequency.

Mahkii, thank you for putting it in such an understandable way, been trying to get that point across for a week now. Your wording was just very clear /applaud.
Anyways, I don't thinks it's just tanks that aren't realizing this, but a decent chunk of WHMs here, this very simple point is probably going to skyrocket the value of Healer DMG/CS changes to WHM with how much not having to dance will permit weaving in OGCD healing, something that while convenient for SCHs and moreso ASTs, both lack the tools to benefit from it as healers. While WHMs are complaining about their heals being outclassed by the others, thats simply when you compare the GCD spells as you go from WHM to SCH to AST the amount of MP reqd GCDs needed to provide said healing goes up along with the amount of non-healing support provided. Tho even with ASTs cheaper Bene 1/2, and Helios costs, we cast all 3 more. (Aspected Helios costs the same as Succor, and Regen is cheaper than Aspected Benefic). SCH still loses the MP efficiency game tho, they cast more GCDs than WHM with less GCD tools thus making the options they have cost more since they replace multiple GCDs out of WHM/AST, and while they have more OGCD and MP free heals than AST 2 of them share an opportunity cost, and another assumes the right faerie is out or that the other faerie didnt use the same skill slot recently (Eos and Selene share CDs, keep that in mind, swiftcast switch wont get you both from the same petbar slot. ALSO this can be used as an arguement against counting SCH/SMN spet skills uniquely for button count, given that its always 4 skills usable, 1 GCD like 3 OGCDs, 4 buttons not 8-12).

For reference on MP costs of Healer GCDs:
WHM / SCH / AST
Cure I 442 / Physick 442 / Benefic 353
Cure II 884 / A2 / Benefic II 795
Cure III 1679 / X / X
Medica I 1237 / S2 / Helios 1060
Medica II 1592 / Succor 1326 / Aspected Helios 1326
Regen 618 / Adloquium 1060 / Aspected Benefic 787
Notes: A2 SCH Cure 2 slot is also filled by Adloq which costs almost 200MP more, and S2 the base AOE heal slot is also filled with Succor which 100-300 more mana than its competitors. And both do less actual healing than their competitors by at least halved which can only be regained on e every 30s

WHMs take a moment and consider which of your OGCD heals youd be willing to sacrifice for party DPS support? It'd be fair and balanced to sacrifice those for such tools, and fair and balanced seem to be what your claiming you want.