Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

The best change that can possibly be made to White Mage is the nerf, removal, or redesign of the Balance card from Astrologian.

While that change may be a possibility down the road, SE has said nothing of the vision for AST specifically, though they have talked about the healers, in general. If all of the cards in the ASTs toolkit are what the devs envisioned for this specific healer, then I doubt it will change because that is what they want. For the sake of argument, however, I will point out that WHM is possibly the best healer class to DPS with versus the SCH and AST, but even I will acknowledge that that probably doesn't come anywhere close to that buff; especially when it's in conjunction with SCHs new Chain Strategem.

[KingFrost]

+20% crit and +10% Damage. As a DPS main (Getting into WHM), those numbers just make me feel good​.


With how the discussion has had WHM in a vacuum (Which even just then, the new mechanics and abilities, save Thin Air and damage skills, are clunky at best, counter intuitive and stupid at worst), it's easy to lose sight of how stupid Ast and Sch are when buffing. Or are they? If 2/3 healers have that level of utility, then that means that the current healer standard is to have great utility (Offensive and defensive). Being active support on all levels including health restoration (I'd count HP restoration as a form of utility).

I don't know why SE just can't do that for WHM. If a pleb like me can spitball ideas from white magic spells as old as I am, I'm sure they could do better. If only they could get rid of the "WHM Pure heals!!!" Sacred Cow that was made in this game.

On a more community-related note, are people really already getting kicked for playing Whm? I myself have been kicked for just having weak gear as a fresh 60 Pld and was kicked after being berated. I turned off the PS4 didn't wanna play for days. I'd likely wanna quit playing if I got booted for playing my favorite job period.

I know it'll take work, but I honestly feel it's worth it to change the job and hopefully fix this stigma. Not just for a job meeting "meta" requirements, but also just being fun, feeling strong (Relative to your other job options), and not making some a target of the grosser underbelly of the community.

Also, unfortunately, if the Whm does become "meta," any stigma will promptly disappear. That's just how metas work, real talk.

[Remedi]

word is that chain stratagem isn't a direct +20%crit but multiplies your crit rate by 20% (so your crit chance * 1.20)I don't have a source but keep it in mind

[IttyBitty]

On a more community-related note, are people really already getting kicked for playing Whm? I myself have been kicked for just having weak gear as a fresh 60 Pld and was kicked after being berated. I turned off the PS4 didn't wanna play for days. I'd likely wanna quit playing if I got booted for playing my favorite job period.

Also, unfortunately, if the Whm does become "meta," any stigma will promptly disappear. That's just how metas work, real talk.

WHM being excluded from content has been happening since 3.5 at least, though it's been getting more common now.

Also, as shown with AST, it takes time for a tarnished reputation to be rebuilt.

[Reiryuu]

word is that chain stratagem isn't a direct +20%crit but multiplies your crit rate by 20% (so your crit chance * 1.20)I don't have a source but keep it in mind

It's still better than anything a WHM has to offer though. We have *zero* utility. =(

[MsTanya]

I honestly feel like stratagem was tacked onto scholar just so we would have a minute chance to not be the next job stomped into the dirt by astro. Will it really be enough to stop that from happening on its own? Probably just due to the confusion in the tooltips until people realize its multiplicative rather than additive then I fear for sch and whm both at that point.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

its multiplicative rather than additive.

Yeah, Chain was the most disappointing new skill for me in the expansion... Enjoy that 2-3% buff to your crit rate! It's probably the least useful skill as far as effectiveness goes.

[Nyghtmarerobu]

I feel like everyone is taking this "meta" thing way to seriously. Meta will only really apply to the groups that are running for world firsts. Whitemage is a perfectly viable job to heal with, and will always be.

That statement isn't made to detract from whitemages shortcomings as per its lily and confession stack mechanics, but things people may, or may not realise, is that the raid scene can very easily change at the drop of a hat, and preliminary speculation could easily be changed when stormblood is released with its new raid.

But I agree that on paper it all sounds really silly, and I feel like SE doesn't really have a clean idea on how to make it a more 'competitive' job against its counterparts. I do not wish to see either sch or ast nerfed to any degree, but rather bring whm up to their level. But as I said before, all of this hate for the job, is stemming from people who hold the meta as "The Holy Bible" of team comps. There are many combinations to get to the same point. I hear you saying from the back, "But why take a whm over an ast?! DPS is important!!". You're right, it is important, but are you really going to ignore taking your friend of 2 or 3 year, that whm main to your tank, to content because the "meta" told you whm isn't as good as ast or sch? I don't think so... at least, I wouldn't hope so...

[Seraphyna]

Technically, YES, Whm has lost abilities being UNIQUE to their job; but so has so many other jobs. Also Technically, you can reach into the cross-class system to retain all the CDs you have here in Heavenward. So again being technical!! WHM has actually got 1 of its cd's nerfed "divine veil", has loss Stoneskin being 100% accessible (which wasn't ever necessary....bad healing if u spamming Stoneskin) and has lost between 2-5 cross-class role slots

You do realize that Stoneskin was, at most times, the ability that kept tanks alive during tank busters. Right? It was a necessary ability that should not have been taken away.

I also feel bad for people who die. No more buffer of stoneskin for them. I mean really, should they even be raised now without that buffer. There's instances like in Dun Scaith where if you die, that weakness is a killer. Stoneskin helps quite a bit to keep them up until it wears off.

[Reiryuu]

snip

WHM has a lot more problems than just meta and lilies/confessions. Remember, healers and tanks were supposed to get focused on balance since we weren't getting new jobs to play. Does this seem balanced to you? Yoshi P also said we were supposed to be encouraged and get encouraging content. Does this seem encouraging at all to you?

- 3 less abilities, the most abilities that get consolidated of the healers (4), 2 skills we will never use 50+ (Repose, Fluid Aura). While SCH and AST in addition to having more abilities, have 8 additional effects/abilities available to them via cards and faeries that WHMs don't. That's a pretty big gap. Do you remember how often SMNs have begged for more egis? Do you remember Yoshi's reason for not giving it to them? That's right... similar number of abilities... but that doesn't seem to apply to us.
- A much less friendly low level experience with the loss of stoneskin and having to juggle cross-role abilities that new players may not even know they can change or have access to.
- No mitigation abilities in job until 66 and it costs a lily, is casted on one person, and consumes all lilies on a 60 sec cooldown. SCHs get Adloquium, Succor, Sacred Soil; ASTs Bole and Noct Sect for levels 50 and under.
- Contributes the most job abilities to the cross-role system. And, with point 1, gets nothing to fill in the gaps they left.
- Has a stacking buff that has to be tracked on all party members when these new UIs were supposed to eliminate and keep track of said buffs for us. That was their purpose, so why does it apply in reverse to us (We DON'T have one and are now GETTING one)?

There's probably more I could list if I wasn't tired and thinking straight. And look, I know, SCH got hit hard too AoE wise just like Holy got hit hard. Should they get something to help their AoE out? Absolutely! I'm all for it. But a lot of ASTs and SCH are also complaining about one thing: The loss of Aero. Aero is one of Conj/WHM's abilities and now they're complaining that they can't use it in addition to all the other stuff they get from WHM. And guess what? We, technically, lost Aero as well since Aero currently stacks with Aero II and III.