Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Reiryuu]

1) And yet, they had the most useful skills.. (protect, esuna). These skills had to be shared, otherwise we go back to people complaining about skill bloat all over again. These had to be shared, or everyone would have to have a whm in the party. Also point out that Cards are random, and while they have various different effects, you do not always get the card you need at the time you need it, where do you think the spire meme came from? Side note, repose? Really? did anyone use this outside of PvP? Fluid Aura will be missed, r.i.p 2017.

2) I'm not sure what you're trying to convey here. Loss of stoneskin is prolly the wost thing, but the rest of this comment elludes me. I'd like to think people aren't that stupid to not know they have cross-role skills.


3) And if you got something similar to them at around the same level, they are, "homogenizing" all the jobs. Theres no pleasing anyone around here. I stand by the loss of stoneskin in my previous sentence, but thats it.

1) Everyone already had Esuna. I didn't include Esuna because everyone lost it. Divine Seal- We lose it, SCH only lose part of the effect of Dissipation the skill still exists and does something (granted, they don't like it) AST still keep Synastry and it still has its main effect. We have nothing. Not even a 10% healing potency skill to make up for the 10% we lose with Largesse or whatever it's called now. I don't care. It's just an example of us losing a skill, they still have something that they can use. Personally, I rarely use Divine Seal because I don't really like raiding.

Cards are random, sure, I accept that. But the Faerie certainly isn't. The ASTs card effects are powerful because they are random. That doesn't mean WHM can't have effects that are weaker, but still can benefit the party in a way that's smaller but more consistent and reliable. An example we've mentioned before is a skill FFXI had for whm and rdm called Dia. It was a holy-based DoT that lowered the enemy's armor by a little bit. In FFXIV terms maybe it could be a really tiny vulnerabilty debuff or a increased chance at these new direct hit mini-crits they added just something that's consistent that helps out. You'll still feel the balance far more, but the reliability of Dia could at least make up for the lack of an Astro in a whm/sch combo and perhaps the lack of chain stratigem for whm/ast. It's an example. That's all. I'm not necessarily asking for a skill that increases DPS. I just would like some sort of group utility that is useful enough to make a whm a little more welcome. That's all.

Your mention of repose is exactly what I'm talking about. Skill bloat was to remove skills we never use, yet we still have repose. A skill while semi useful 32-44, is largely useless once we get Holy. And yes, RIP Fluid Aura. So why couldn't they remove those instead of stoneskin- a spell we actually use?

2) At level 32 in Brayflox Longstop all the way until Stone Vigil, a WHM will have to choose between Protect, Cleric Stance, Esuna, Swiftcast and Lucid Dreaming. That's 5 skills for 3 slots. Will a player brand new to the game just leveling away know they're there? Maybe, maybe not. Will they know they can change them out on the fly? Maybe, maybe not. Are you going to go into Brayflox, Qarn or Cutters without Esuna? Poison from the last boss in Bray is pretty nasty and it stacks. Qarn has paralyze. Cutters has silence, the debuff from 2nd boss, heavy and paralyze on the final boss too. Do you go without Swiftcast? Probably not a wise idea. Sure, you can take protect then remove it, but again will a new player think to do that? Lucid Dreaming is a must, Brayflox is just about the time where a WHM starts to feel the pain of MP regen (Shroud of Saints was 38)

So why does just the WHM have to worry about this problem since the other 2 healers have something in their job that can help in some these areas. Aetherflow restores MP as does energy drain. ASTs get the Ewer. Random, yes, but its there. SCH have Adlo, ASTs have bole, whm used to have stoneskin... but not anymore. I'll grant you, no Luminiferous Aether as an AST in these dungeons will probably suck if you don't get a ewer, but you're also going to be using some time to draw cards, royal road, etc. which will help alleviate your MP consumption a little bit while you're still doing something. The WHM is either casting, twiddling their fingers or popping Ethers.

I dunno... have I lost too much faith in low level players? But still, I know I sure as hell don't want to have to juggle cross-role abilities if I get stuck in the leveling roulette =/

3) We DID have a skill we learned around level 30. At 34 in fact. It was called Stoneskin. It's gone now. What is this homogenizing you are talking about?

Not sure what to say about this, they had the most useful skills, and leaving those to whm's only would just skew what you guys are complaining about the other way, and instead this thread would be about sch and ast with no protect.

Don't take me the wrong way. I'm not complaining that they were taken, per se. I'm complaining that they were taken without giving us anything in return especially since we've got fewer skills than the other two right now. Surely, they could have looked and said, "Hey guys, WHM has three less skills than the other two. Why don't we give them 3 new skills to pad out some of their lower level toolkit to even things out a bit and replace some of the stuff we took away?" Am I really asking too much?

Other jobs, too. SCH? New AoE that's a bit like Aero III? Sure, give it to them level 40 to replace leeches, the job skill they lost to Esuna cross-role. You won't hear a peep in complaints from me. Bring me the petition, I'll sign it. I just don't really like scholar that much so I can't really comment on what else they would want or need.

[TaleraRistain]

Go look at the new trailer that came out today. At 4:17, what ability animation is that?

https://youtu.be/gEsKncw1u7A?t=4m17s

That looks like Pulse of Life to me, complete with the kneel we do when we set it off

[HyperiusUltima]

I agree with Rei here. WHM NEEDS SOMETHING TO FILL THOSE GAPS. Honestly, if anything WHM needs to be able to make itself look apart from both AST and SCH in some way or another, considering that they're even making 20% DS available to SCH and AST.

With DS, SCH would now do Summon Eos -> Fey Illumination -> Largesse -> Dissipation -> Galvanize(Crit) -> Deploy

In total, you're looking at a 60% HEALING INCREASE. Considering Galvanize goes off of actual healing, that's an insane Shield. No way should SCH be able to go off like that in an opener since that can save an entire raid just by using that alone if it Crits. Yoshi P. already said himself he didn't like SCH and WAR being Mandatory Jobs in Raids, yet Chain Strategem forces SCH to be required even more alongside the cross-role stuff that SCH is getting due to the large amounts of mitigation the party is getting if they released it like that, along with a +20% Crit Chance on the SCH's target for 15s that STACKS with Litany and BRD's Songs.

Only thing I wish for is that WHM has something to bring that can beat that, and also the huge Remote Heal Nuke that AST has on a 60s CD along with the special Sleeve Draw that allows AST to do A LOT WITH CARDS. If it can't be on level with AST, then AST will kick out WHM any day of the week if their healing throughput doesn't match Di-AST's +15%.

As long as WHM is fun to play, that's what matters most outside of battling for raid involvement.

[Elamys]

2) At level 32 in Brayflox Longstop all the way until Stone Vigil, a WHM will have to choose between Protect, Cleric Stance, Esuna, Swiftcast and Lucid Dreaming

Small note - the new Cleric Stance is garbage and in no way required. Lucid Dreaming is probably not required for these levels as MP management is hardly ever an issue. You could even get away without using Protect or Swiftcast. I do think it's frustrating that WHM lost all these things, but it's no different for any other healer, we all had to wait to get all our skills that WHM has because of the cross role and pretty much every healer is going to be doing the same thing.

[Roll]

SE seems to be adamant about not giving White Mages any mitigation or utility but there's a few WHM spells and abilities that have been a part of their kit in the past games that would be nice to see implemented. Here's some random ideas:

Pray
Channel ability- Restore nearby party members HP/MP/TP by a small amount while channeling.
Note: In the FF4 remake for the DS, Rosa's Pray ability was able to restore a small amount of HP and MP to all party members.

Dia (From FF1, FFXI, etc.)
Increases the chance of causing a Direct Hit on target by 20% for 10 seconds.
Note: There's currently no buffs for Direct Hit so maybe this could be a thing for White Mages since Astrologian's have The Balance and Scholar's have Chain Stratagem.

Sacrosanctity (From FFXI)
Basically a 10% damage reduction bubble like Sacred Soil.
Note: I don't think that it's right to have a "pure healer" without a reliable form of mitigation and Divine Benison seems like a clunky slap in the face of a Stoneskin.

Reflect
Delivers an attack with a potency of 50 every time magic damage is inflicted on targeted party member. Note: Basically Ifrit-Egi's Radiant Shield except for magic attacks since Radiant Shield is just triggered off of physical attacks.

Temper/Bravery/Faith
Increases target party members Direct Hit chance by 10-20%"
We've seen something like this being used numerous times in the story cutscenes. A certain White Mage in the story uses this on their Archer/Bard to power up their next attack.


As for Astrologian, I think the cards need more tweaking instead of a fishing for The Balance fest. Perhaps something like this:

The Spear: Increases target's critical hit chance by 10%

The Arrow: Increases target's attack speed (skill, spell, auto-attack) by 10% and also reduces TP consumption by X%

The Balance: Yeah this needs to be reduced back to 10%. 20% is way too overpowered.

[OcieKo]

SE seems to be adamant about not giving White Mages any mitigation or utility but there's a few WHM spells and abilities that have been a part of their kit in the past games that would be nice to see implemented. Here's some random ideas:

Pray
Channel ability- Restore nearby party members HP/MP/TP by a small amount while channeling.
Note: In the FF4 remake for the DS, Rosa's Pray ability was able to restore a small amount of HP and MP to all party members.

Dia (From FF1, FFXI, etc.)
Increases the chance of causing a Direct Hit on target by 20% for 10 seconds.
Note: There's currently no buffs for Direct Hit so maybe this could be a thing for White Mages since Astrologian's have The Balance and Scholar's have Chain Stratagem.

Sacrosanctity (From FFXI)
Basically a 10% damage reduction bubble like Sacred Soil.
Note: I don't think that it's right to have a "pure healer" without a reliable form of mitigation and Divine Benison seems like a clunky slap in the face of a Stoneskin.

Reflect
Delivers an attack with a potency of 50 every time magic damage is inflicted on targeted party member. Note: Basically Ifrit-Egi's Radiant Shield except for magic attacks since Radiant Shield is just triggered off of physical attacks.

Temper/Bravery/Faith
Increases target party members Direct Hit chance by 10-20%"
We've seen something like this being used numerous times in the story cutscenes. A certain White Mage in the story uses this on their Archer/Bard to power up their next attack.


As for Astrologian, I think the cards need more tweaking instead of a fishing for The Balance fest. Perhaps something like this:

The Spear: Increases target's critical hit chance by 10%

The Arrow: Increases target's attack speed (skill, spell, auto-attack) by 10% and also reduces TP consumption by X%

The Balance: Yeah this needs to be reduced back to 10%. 20% is way too overpowered.

Direct hit buff on WHM not against, but numbers have to be way lower if additive. Keep in mind DH is supposed to have a waaay higher proc chance than crit, and can stack with it. Assuming a DPS can reaonably get 25-30% crit chance, Direct Hit can probably get into the 40-60% range if focused. Saving grace here is it wont affect the entire party so may be possible to keep it higher but additive 20% would just be...

Not against pray, just have to figure out a way for it not to bite into MCH/BRD space too badly. Also anything that gives WHMs a downside in their kit makes me happy atm. Mostly personal grudge from these forums in the past week. Also WHM are the only healer w/o a skill that hurts themselves in some way. SCH and AST each have at least 2.

Reflect possible, depends on encounter magic dmg occurance rate for value tho.

Spear w/ crit just no... As much as Id like more competition for balance, now wrre just eating into other peoples territory, and this alongside a weaker balance would just flip it into prime phishing space,
Arrow, i think people complain about it too much now, personally i like it as is, probably my favorite (yes i prefer arrow over balance, doesnt mean i ditch balance for it, i just keep whichever i see first). The later half kindof messes with the flow of melees, works fine with MP reduction, but most above average melees i know have where they like thier TP recovery to be at, aside from AOE i think that might make people dislike arrow even more. Also it would now encroach on Spire, 1 effect per card is enough.
5-10% dps works on most other jobs because of reliability. 15-7.5-22.5 you may have an arguement, aside from it looking weird. On the other hand if the unreliable dmg increase gets nerfed, what happens to the reliable ones, which are technically stronger?

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I'm complaining that they were taken without giving us anything in return especially since we've got fewer skills than the other two right now.

This. Right here. The reason people are truly disappointed in what SE did to us.
They took away sooo much. Deleted something that helped us in progression since ARR. And we got absolutely nothing in return.

I remember back when they were talking about the role actions system. The point was not only that they wanted to free up room on our hotbars, but also to better solidify the identity of the jobs.

So, excuse me if I've overlooked something, but what exactly was solidified in the case of WHM?
Every other healer gained gained and gained, and we lost, got stuff deleted, and got stuff returned to us weaker than before... I understand the other healers not getting things replaced, they've maybe lost 2 abilities max. But WHM lost half it's kit. Why is it fair that we get nothing while everyone kept their unique abilities and only gained more?

I'd go as far as to say the role actions hurt our identity even more. AST and SCH can use these new role actions to strengthen their kits even more. WHM just takes back what they already had, slightly weaker, and nothing's changed from their 3.0. It's ridiculous.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Didn't the community already experience this? I was under the impression that everyone is upset because SE presumably did nothing to make WHM meta relevant again, and is forcing their pure healer down our throats?

I just wonder who's extensive job it is to wade through all the "You killed WHM!" and "I won't be resubbing for 4.0" comments to find the ones that are actually constructive. I also wonder if they listen to us at all during this stage, and instead listen to a select set of individuals who represent the voices of the community. What I do know is that players who stick things through into 4.0 before tossing their mains in a coffin and nailing it shut will speak louder to the devs than those who don't.

What will ultimately determine what happens with White Mage going forward is player interest. If there is a fairly rapid decline in people clearing content with White Mage or PF does lock it out, you'll see changes. Sadly, unless the backlash is overwhelming, I doubt we will see much before 4.1.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

If there is a fairly rapid decline in people clearing content with White Mage or PF does lock it out, you'll see changes.

If I can guarantee one thing, it's that no raider in their right mind will take a WHM over an AST or SCH.
Honestly, we may start even seeing more double AST comps. SE seems to be trying very hard to push a WHM + AST team, and they're trying to enforce it by giving AST ridiculous mitigation. But giving SCH Chain Strategem ruined any chances of that.

Sometimes it just feels like SE is so disconnected with their playerbase.
Raiders are always going to take more damage over less.
Hell, WHM can't even argue that they have more healing power now. AST heals more than them, and unlike WHM, they can take their healing buffs to ridiculous durations. I used to say that WHMs were the healers that could burst heal harder (thanks to Divine Seal) and more often. Now...AST can, and for 10 seconds longer so....?

[Lambdafish]

What will ultimately determine what happens with White Mage going forward is player interest. If there is a fairly rapid decline in people clearing content with White Mage or PF does lock it out, you'll see changes. Sadly, unless the backlash is overwhelming, I doubt we will see much before 4.1.

The fact that this thread consolidation exists, and they are already outlining fixes shows that the devs are fearing an overwhelming backlash.