Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Tsunenori]

I feel like a lot of this thread and the community reaction to this has been nothing but a disappointing embarrassment. Half of the complaints are low-key begging for AST nerfs, and I don't even know how many are coming from players who parrot the first thing they hear about meta this and meta that like it's gospel.

What makes a class desirable right now, one week from expansion in content we overgear and have on farm in encounters that have been designed a certain way has no bearing on what will make a class desirable in content we're undergeared for, inexperienced with, and may be designed in a way that facilitates the strengths of one class over another. How many people trashed Dark Knight at the beginning of 3.0 before running into Magic Damage tank busters that they were needed for? On top of that, there's no reason for White Mage to be the "meta" pick for all time. There are 3 healers and two healer spots. As people begin to out-skill and overgear the content it's natural that WHM will phase out because people don't need its healing anymore.

I feel like the majority of these complaints are bubbling frustration from the AST overbuffs, with people acting like a raid environment where damage is the only thing that matters is somehow healthy and what we need to be striving to be competitive with as WHMs. This is, imo, a symptom of a much larger problem that's going to continue to get worse as time goes on as long as damage damage damage is all that matters to every class in all content. That's the bigger problem to get a handle on.

Are lillies/confessions counter-intuitive to the way WHM works? Somewhat. If someone is telling you they don't cast cures they're a liar, especially in progression content or undergeared content where regens alone get you killed. But regen effects are an undeniable part of our toolkit and as has been mentioned time and again it's bizarre that they don't give us a method of leaning into those more. Is CDR a terrible mechanic? No, absolutely not. Boring? Absolutely yes. Sometimes underwhelming? Sure. Unreliable? Maybe if you're not the kind of player who is able to adapt or plan.

The class is, on the whole, stronger in Stormblood if we pretend Lillies/Confessions don't exist at all than it is right now. While I'd love to see a more interesting mechanic in place and brand new toys to play with, this sky is falling rhetoric has to stop. As has been mentioned in here already, the players themselves are the ones creating this PR disaster for the class. We need more constructive feedback and less outright hysteria.