Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Reiryuu]

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There has been a lot of constructive and reasoned arguments throughout this thread with evidence to back it up. Please stop dismissing that for us screaming that the sky is falling before reading some of it, will you? There is not one WHM in this entire thread that has said they don't cast cures. But can you tell me that the only 2 spells you cast to heal your party are cure I and cure II? There is not one WHM in this thread that said every single group has to have a WHM in raiding. But why bring a WHM when you can have AST and SCH with Chain Strategem, The Balance, and lose no healing power? If you have an answer for that question, please, let's hear it. People have been seeing groups exclude WHMs already and even the Japanese player base is upset with the changes and saying some rather unflattering things about white mages in their currently proposed state. If we don't complain now and point out what we see as missteps from SE, how will they know what they need to improve? SE has made mistakes before and the changes to BRD and MCH are evidence of that.

And I'm not trying to sound agressive here. Just please, try to see our arguments before you just brush them aside.

[Tsunenori]

And I'm not trying to sound agressive here. Just please, try to see our arguments before you just brush them aside.

There's definitely a *lot* of sky is falling around some of these comments, not just here but on reddit. Maybe not the majority, but they steer the tone. These are the kinds of comments that my rant is directed toward and that need to be curtailed. If we're talking about groups excluding white mage based on lilly hysteria then there's nothing to be done about that, but if you're talking about raid content where AST and SCH are more desired at the moment then sure, absolutely, it's a shame. But I'd maybe make the suggestion that it's a reaction to how normal WHM is compared to how abnormal AST currently is.

If you're seeking balance among healers then abilities like Chain Stratagem and the Balance card are the last place we should be looking, because they're inherently unbalanced and exploitable by high skilled players and the playstyle those players employ filters down and creates this meta we all keep talking about and emulating. I personally am not advocating for this, but if you want to actually balance healers then you remove spells like that entirely. As long as there exists a class that can almost permanently, luck permitting, raise an entire raid's DPS by such numbers then there will always be an overwhelming preference for that class.

As I said briefly in my post, I do agree that the mechanic is underwhelming. It doesn't interact with the most important part of our kit, which I mentioned as well. There have been good ideas shared by constructive posters about how to fix this, including having regens stack confessions or having lillies interact with our toolkit in a better way. They seem to want White Mage to be a more pure and straightforward class, so what are WHM-specific ways to make lillies both straightforward and stronger? Maybe they buff your regen potencies, maybe if we keep CDR then they also accelerate the cooldowns on all your spells currently on CD, whatever else along those lines. Do we want lillies to be more of an interactive choice? Do we spend them to enhance shields? Party buffs? If we gain some kind of strong utility in one area though, do we lose something in another? I'm not sure.

Edit: Also, SNESterday up above had some good feedback too. Maybe too strong, but it's something to work from.

I guess let me step back here a moment. I'm in agreement that Lillies are less than what I'd hoped for, although I do think Confessions are neat but could use some tweaking on how they're handled somewhat. I'm glad that they're listening to players, and if they want to offer some strong mechanical changes to how WHM mechanics are going to work then I'm game for it.

Absolutely voice your complaints and make them heard. If you look into my post history you'll see instances where I tell people who try to shut down complaints that their dismissive posts aren't helpful. I always want feedback, and this game was rebuilt on the back of player feedback, but the emphasis of my post was for certain individuals to re-examine whether or not their tone was helpful or hurtful to not only the feedback that the developers are looking for but also the job in general in the eyes of the community. If people are actually kicking White Mages from content now as a result of all of this, then it's a player-made problem and not a developer-made one. Whatever the "meta" is going to be we're all guessing in the dark at the moment anyway.

Sorry if this seems kinda spotty, I'm trying to keep a few discussions going at once. If you'd like me to further clarify something I can.

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I feel like my biggest issue with it personally is that job identity that you brought up. If we leave aside mechanics for a moment, I'm not really sure where it makes me feel more like a White Mage.

[Cynfael]

I feel like my biggest issue with it personally is that job identity that you brought up. If we leave aside mechanics for a moment, I'm not really sure where it makes me feel more like a White Mage.

I'm with you there.

I enjoy a good number crunch, but at the end of the day, the primary consideration is fun. Naturally the Job has to be effective since players generally don't find unreasonable struggle and failure to be fun, but I think the negative sentiment surrounding Lilies and Confession stacks would be less intense if they were perceived as remotely entertaining or as making WHM more unique.

The only healer that isn't suffering a bit of malaise right now is AST, and it's not only because their numbers look absurd; their new skills look fun and useful, and they build on the AST's themes of cards and things celestial. WHM, as of the same build, was slated to receive entirely recycled and/or poorly planned mechanics. SCH, while not as widely panned as WHM here, is looking pretty bland as well with AST shields looking to be definitively stronger and new SCH mechanics looking fairly bland. Even if Chain Strategem works additively, it will be a math skill that is decidedly more efficient than it is actually fun to use.