Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[OcieKo]

[LIST]
[*]SCH= emerency tactic, lustrate, Whispering Dawn, Aetherflow, indom, soil*, rouse (I know i'm missing some...)
[*]AST= CU, ED, card system, Synastry
[*]WHM= Divine(losing it lulz), Tetra, Assize and Asylum

Given that your using 3.X skill comparisons similar to me. Luminiferous Aether and Shroud of Saints are missing (both going poof). SCH Fey Caress (AoE Cleanse) is missing, Shares CD with Fey Covenant (SCH answer to bole, but in AoE regards its twice as strong). Fey Illumination is missing, shares CD with Fey Wind, and as far as i know Fey Wind is preferred, and Selene is generally used more than Eos, unless im missing something. Which makes Whispering Dawn the cheapest of the Fairie CDs by simple merit of having the least useful shared skill with the single target silence on Silent Dusk.
Also just realized, WHM is the only healer that lacks something they cant use on themselves, AST and SCH have 2 each. Not sure if Benison will join those skills tho. So i guess that goes along side the only job without personal disables (channels/temporary kit loss/weakens part if kit).
And yes there is a reasons to ignoring the non-healing skills, to make a point of what WHM has where SCH/AST have their non-healing utility. Its being ignored a bit too heavily. And no one seems to be recommending ditching Benediction or cutting out a facet of Assize for a party offense buff. At some point WHMs are going to have to take downsides to get that non-healing utility, and that isnt apparent in the arguments, just "I wanna be stronger and have more utility at the same time" its one or the other. You wanna take -50% damage on Thin Air to get a reflect or direct hit buff, be my guest, id rather have the option to DPS with Thin Air, but I play WHM to relax.

[Mahkii]

Im intentionally avoiding non-final numbers as much as possible. Also not a fan of the stance bonus changes on AST, was pretty fine with where they were, Im going to miss me spell speed on Diurnal. Earthly Star, I can't think of a way the 900 potency is gunna make it to the 16th so I've largely ignored it. Holdin opinion on Lord/Lady until we have better details on how their acquired and used, atm I'm still pretty in the dark on that matter, aside from DMG/Healing and 50% RNG can be gotten with Sleeve Draw (god im dreading AOE Spire draws...). Personally ive been comparing PI/Confession to Synastry, since in that format, PI is rather reliable, getting a few stacks on tanks should be pretty easy before outgearing. Half tempted to think Lady might end up taking the place of procced Cure III as opposed to PI.

Yep, we lost disable, our debuffs in general were trimmed down, AST might be winning for least reliable debuffs/CC in the game now. Pretty sure Stella got cut as well.
Keep in mind Thin Air/Presence of Mind are also more freely usable than the more condensed Lightspeed, while Thin Airs comparable is 4X stronger (no i dont think the MP reduction needs to be improved yet, waiting for MP sustain to be clear before that). Not to mention neither hurt the WHMs kit in any way. WHM pretty much lost its only self inflicted effectiveness loss with the CS changes.
Bole, and here i liked you because it felt like you understood the differences of result RNG vs. Opportunity RNG and opportunity cost, which WHM has barely got in the lily system, which it seems their trying to get rid of with no potency loss, but rather a gain, which is backwards...

Just for giggles Id like to see how much WHMs would rage if Medica IIs range was brought in line with Succor/Aspected Helios and they started having problems hitting the tank and the ranged dps with it like we do.

You get an ability called Minor Arcana that you can use to convert any card to Lord/Lady (50% chance both ways). You use it instead of throwing away cards now. Not exactly the vision I had for AST (which involved abilities that reduced RNG), but works well for me. I'm pretty sure Lady is single target btw, and I'd probably just use it like a lustrate.

Plenary Indulgence, to me, is going to replace the concept of following a Cure2/Adlo up with a tetra/lustrate/essential. I think it has like a 15 second cooldown, so maybe WHM just uses Cure 1 following by Plenary Indulgence now as a preference over Cure 2 until you get Cure 2 proc. In that situation, it would make up for the potency difference. So, that looks like MP efficiency and higher dps GCD count to me.

I think you and I have 2 different mindsets though. In my mindset, I raid as either WHM or AST. If the abilities on the job do not do anything for me, they are a waste/garbage/clutter/bloat. For example, extra range on an AOE heal does nothing for me, because my group already grouped up together well (in range) by default. If one of the 2 jobs has abilities that I or my group cohesively would rather have in raid, I will just use that job. No big deal. The only thing I advocate for is that SE do some balance work so that decision becomes situational and not just 1 job all the time.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Earthly Star, I can't think of a way the 900 potency is gunna make it to the 16th so I've largely ignored it. Holdin opinion on Lord/Lady until we have better details on how their acquired and used, atm I'm still pretty in the dark on that matter, aside from DMG/Healing

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Waiting 10 seconds is probably good enough for SE to triple the healing potency of the spell compared to Assize >.>
Funny enough, it's damage potency is weaker than Assize. If WHM is the pure healer, shouldn't Earthly Star deal more dmg but heal less than Assize?
I don't get this.

As for Lord and Lady, the main effect of this isn't really what effect it gives, but the fact that you now are able to "use" every card you draw. This almost completely eliminates the main drawback of AST. RNG cards. Now no matter what, you'll always get something to use. Either a heal that's 100 potency weaker than Lustrate, or a 300 potency attack.

Combine the usefulness of this with the fact that Ewer and Spire are now AOE, honestly AST really has no dud cards. Even drawing Spear is helpful in some way now.

[OcieKo]

You get an ability called Minor Arcana that you can use to convert any card to Lord/Lady (50% chance both ways). You use it instead of throwing away cards now. Not exactly the vision I had for AST (which involved abilities that reduced RNG), but works well for me. I'm pretty sure Lady is single target btw, and I'd probably just use it like a lustrate.

Plenary Indulgence, to me, is going to replace the concept of following a Cure2/Adlo up with a tetra/lustrate/essential. I think it has like a 15 second cooldown, so maybe WHM just uses Cure 1 following by Plenary Indulgence now as a preference over Cure 2 until you get Cure 2 proc. In that situation, it would make up for the potency difference. So, that looks like MP efficiency and higher dps GCD count to me.

I think you and I have 2 different mindsets though. In my mindset, I raid as either WHM or AST. If the abilities on the job do not do anything for me, they are a waste/garbage/clutter/bloat. For example, extra range on an AOE heal does nothing for me, because my group already grouped up together well (in range) by default. If one of the 2 jobs has abilities that I or my group cohesively would rather have in raid, I will just use that job. No big deal. The only thing I advocate for is that SE do some balance work so that decision becomes situational and not just 1 job all the time.

Something feels missing in the Minor Arcana then, because it was confirmed their basically giving us a built in right click drawn card buff as well, if minor arcana was meant to fill in for wasted cards this would be unnecessary, guess itll be a wait and see, outside of coin flip odds and heal va dmg. There might be something in there slowing the use of the card itself. Do we have any solid details on how the Lord/Lady is distributed to an ally? Is it another Spread like button or a 2nd click on minor arcana like draw. Is it tied to our regular hand out of a buff. Once I have more clarity on this I can speculate more, I cant lie asside from the skills in a bubble most of my more practical use research has been going to Melee DPS and Tanks.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Waiting 10 seconds is probably good enough for SE to triple the healing potency of the spell compared to Assize >.>
Funny enough, it's damage potency is weaker than Assize. If WHM is the pure healer, shouldn't Earthly Star deal more dmg but heal less than Assize?
I don't get this.

As for Lord and Lady, the main effect of this isn't really what effect it gives, but the fact that you now are able to "use" every card you draw. This almost completely eliminates the main drawback of AST. RNG cards. Now no matter what, you'll always get something to use. Either a heal that's 100 potency weaker than Lustrate, or a 300 potency attack.

Combine the usefulness of this with the fact that Ewer and Spire are now AOE, honestly AST really has no dud cards. Even drawing Spear is helpful in some way now.

I still see the heal on Earthly Star dropping to at least 700 if not less just for its sheer radius. ASTs personal DMG has always been kept on the low and expensive side to compensate for our buffing potential, I dont see that changing going forward.

Lord/Lady thoughts in the other reply.

Ewer/Spire, more clarity on what your trying to say please. At the moment it feels like your saying if i draw Ewer/Spire and use it ill be able to hit everyone. If your referring to Ewer/Spire switching places with Spear/Arrow for Royal Road way back, theres a lot of ways of looking at that. In one way, it made actually using Arrow for the speed buff more useful, on the other hand it made Ewer/Spire harder to use for the refresh given that AOE Royal Road is quite nice. Still dont really see a spot for spear to be super useful outside of using it to replace it even faster.

[Mahkii]

Something feels missing in the Minor Arcana then, because it was confirmed their basically giving us a built in right click drawn card buff as well, if minor arcana was meant to fill in for wasted cards this would be unnecessary, guess itll be a wait and see, outside of coin flip odds and heal va dmg. There might be something in there slowing the use of the card itself. Do we have any solid details on how the Lord/Lady is distributed to an ally? Is it another Spread like button or a 2nd click on minor arcana like draw. Is it tied to our regular hand out of a buff. Once I have more clarity on this I can speculate more, I cant lie asside from the skills in a bubble most of my more practical use research has been going to Melee DPS and Tanks.

Well don't forget the level requirement to use Minor Arcana (its somewhere between 61 and 70). Once you have Lady, it works just like lustrate. You get to use it on 1 ally 1 time, instant cast 0 mp cost at 500 (nominal) potency. Lord is a 300 (nominal) potency single target attack on the enemy, instant cast 0 mp cost. Its a 2nd click and saved card on Minor Arcana, like spread.

I still see the heal on Earthly Star dropping to at least 700 if not less just for its sheer radius. ASTs personal DMG has always been kept on the low and expensive side to compensate for our buffing potential, I dont see that changing going forward.

Don't forget that AST used to have low healing and low buffing potential that have been gradually increased over the past 2 years. I wonder which was the original design error.

[OcieKo]

Well don't forget the level requirement to use Minor Arcana (its somewhere between 61 and 70). Once you have Lady, it works just like lustrate. You get to use it on 1 ally 1 time, instant cast 0 mp cost at 500 (nominal) potency. Lord is a 300 (nominal) potency single target attack on the enemy, instant cast 0 mp cost. Its a 2nd click and saved card on Minor Arcana, like spread.

Hrmm now something feels weird about the pitch a card macro... Only thing i can think of would be a CD post use on Minor Arcana being longer than 30s, and that seems weird if their both single target and sharing card draw space with spread and royal road. More clarity, still leaves that weird nagging in the corner of my mind tho. Unless the "card ditch" and Minor Arcana are actually the same thing and just conveyed poorly in translation.

[Mahkii]

Hrmm now something feels weird about the pitch a card macro... Only thing i can think of would be a CD post use on Minor Arcana being longer than 30s, and that seems weird if their both single target and sharing card draw space with spread and royal road. More clarity, still leaves that weird nagging in the corner of my mind tho. Unless the "card ditch" and Minor Arcana are actually the same thing and just conveyed poorly in translation.

I'm trying to not make this confusing. You currently have:
Draw
Royal Road
Spread
Redraw

You will have:
Draw
Royal Road
Spread
Redraw
Minor Arcana

You will have the ability to hold up to 4 values:
A drawn card value
A royal road value
A spread value
A minor arcana value

If you are concerned about keeping your drop card macro, you could still throw away cards if you don't want to use the stored minor arcana value. Minor Arcana has a cooldown of 5 seconds (draw has a cooldown for 30 seconds for reference). You still can only draw cards for every 30 seconds, so you won't be spamming minor arcana any faster than draw.

[HyperiusUltima]

So, since we're on the topic of AST, what are its downsides? We already know from current discussion one of those is being erased due to Minor Arcana(Lord/Lady), so AST has a use for every card. One thing I want to think is that with the buffs given over the 3.x series, is that AST's healing potencies shouldn't outdo WHM in that category and it's generally what got WHM taken off Raid Meta in general after World 1sts. As far as I know, WHM is used for progression of content, but I wish it could be a job that can at least contest just as easily against its opposing healer(AST) for a spot. In 3.2, when AST was buffed again, I felt like there was an even balance between AST and WHM to the point that you could take either into Midas Savage and still meet checks.

[OcieKo]

If you are concerned about keeping your drop card macro, you could still throw away cards if you don't want to use the stored minor arcana value. Minor Arcana has a cooldown of 5 seconds (draw has a cooldown for 30 seconds for reference). You still can only draw cards for every 30 seconds, so you won't be spamming minor arcana any faster than draw.

Oh i personally right click it. Its the part that were getting a built in one that some people macro, in part to make it easier to ditch on controller. Maybe just keep em both on the bars and flip em when we get to Minor Arcana lefel.

[Risvertasashi]

So, since we're on the topic of AST, what are its downsides?

Real question, or rhetorical towards your point?

If it's a real question, personal DPS. From the data we have, WHM will have the highest personal DPS (both AoE and single target) of all three healers. All three healers are also being brought into line of what WHM DPS is currently: Focus on nukes, weakening of DoTs (which means DPS will drop significantly for every GCD not spent DPSing, on any healer).