Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[VanilleFang]

I think AST may not only draw more people due to its much stronger kit, but also because it's easily the most interesting to play in general. With the change to CS, which I know most people approve of, DPSing as a healer has 've come incredibly brainless and easy.

Yes you can micromanage your faerie with SCH but that's mostly unneeded outside end game savages. WHM doesn't really have much going on (I seriously make up a game for myself with seeing how well I can manage my Lilies). AST have cards... which actually give you some sort of SOMETHING to do outside [ Heal Tank > DoTs > Spam nuke > Heal Tank > repeat ]

[A-Rook]

I haven't jumped into this thread yet, though I've been keeping up with it. Thanks to everyone who has contributed analysis and discussion on the topic- there's been a ton of interesting information. I definitely want to write something up after playing a bit more in SB, but I wanted to at least touch base here after starting into SB today.

The changes to White Mage have noticeably decreased my enjoyment and engagement while playing the class, which is a bummer. I was hoping that maybe getting into it would bring out some highlights I hadn't noticed. Rotations are simplified, which is great for streamlining things, but with a class that was already fairly straightforward to begin with, even stacking DoTs with the Aero variations or having the back and forth of cleric stance gave some flow, challenge, structure, and pacing. At this point, for the majority of my questing and world exploration, I now have perhaps two abilities I hit, without even the benefit of having a damage boost to toggle due to the slot limitations of job abilities.

From a user experience standpoint, coming straight into the game and respec-ing my toolbar wasn't a moment of giddy excitement over new possibilities and possible combos, but an instant realization that 'oh, yeah, everybody was right. There's not really any remarkable new abilities and I can't even do...all of what I used to do as the basis of WHM's fundamental game play.' Of course, the 5% of the new cleric stance isn't so drastic that it's a brutal loss if I don't have it 24/7, but you want players to go in looking forward to the exploration and expansion of their world/class, not immediately feeling limited in their options.

Though acquiring lilies hasn't necessarily been difficult, the result has been that in order to do so, I have to forgo any and all other measures to heal a player in favor of Cure II. Why do this when more efficient and practical options are available immediately? Because I build a gauge, which usually indicates progressing my actions and gameplay positively for a greater effect. However, even when I did so, the cooldown reduction seemed so insignificant in my overall play and pacing that, as Mogana stated, I started to ignore them altogether. Of course, higher end content may showcase this ability differently, but as of now, I'm not completely convinced.

White Mages' HoT power has been repeatedly brought up in this thread and while I agree that we do cast Cure/Cure II in duties more than we might argue at times, the point is that we have many other measures that maintain health in much more efficient ways over time. I don't rely on Cure/Cure II, because if I'm planning my gameplay well, I'm using effects that last longer, free me up to be reactive if I need to, and provide a cushion for my party on a larger scope. Unfortunately, the rewards of stacking lilies don't support this mission so thoroughly that I've found it necessary to rework my gameplay focus to build on them. In fact, they sort of detract from that mission and make my healing more roundabout.

Anyway, just some initial thoughts!

[Verdan]

I'm glad you brought up the feeling of role actions logging in. I know a paladin and a warrior, and I heard the same thing from them. Even though the paladin looks really good(too good, even) right now, loading in and being like "welp, there goes protect and stoneskin and fracture and" and the warrior looking at all his cool buttons just crossed out... it felt awful. It wasn't exciting to look in the role actions and get my stuff back, it was demoralizing.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

I've had the opposite reaction. I looked into the role skills, and all I thought was that there were a wide variety of skills from which to choose which could all prove to be particularly useful in certain situations. I really don't feel like I've lost anything to the role system, and more like I have options to swap between for fights.

[Kopela]

I've had the opposite reaction. I looked into the role skills, and all I thought was that there were a wide variety of skills from which to choose which could all prove to be particularly useful in certain situations. I really don't feel like I've lost anything to the role system, and more like I have options to swap between for fights.

Do you mind elaborating a bit on what situations justify giving up Esuna, Protect, Lucid Dreaming, largeese and Swiftcast? I am wracking my brain and I can't think of any situation where I would want to give one of these up especially for the other Roll skills (save for Eye for Eye which I would love to have but personally cannot justify taking.) Many of the other skills seem like they would help supplement sprout/poor dps in a group. Rescue seems like it was made for this but I feel like I would be helping my party out a lot more by taking Swiftcast and Lucid dreaming. Both of those spells can help me save (and recover from saving) a person who takes a big hit AND they are helpful for other reasons whereas Rescue can only help that one dps. Break seems like it could maybe be good for solo content but we still have Repose so I don't see how a heavy is going to help much. I think Surecast has the potential to be helpful in raids but that is only if they are designed around knockbacks that don't have some other way of being avoided. Claric Stance is another one I could see helping out sprout/poor dps checks but again I feel like that's going to be rare especially since content is not designed around healer dps. I am wracking my brain to find a justification for any of these other skills that does not just get shot down by the fact that Esuna, Protect, Lucid Dreaming, largeese and Swiftcast are the best skills for keeping a group alive and no special situation can trump a not dead party.

That's how I see it anyway I'm not one of those number cruncher types it's just my take after close to 4 years playing WHM

[VanilleFang]

I use Protect at the start of a run, or in between pulls. When I don't need it anymore I swap it with E4E.

Quick note: You can quickly unequip and equip Role Abilities by right clicking on them in the menu, and since there is so much extra space on our hot/cross bars now you can easily have Protect and E4E set. You can also set up a macro to do this for you.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

So, after playing WHM for a very decent amount of time, in dungeons and out, I'm actually surprised to say that I enjoy WHM less, despite the job not changing much.

Lilies aren't required, but because it's there, you have the desire to use it of course. So you'll find yourself forcing oppurtunites to use them when you really could have have just kept dpsing and used a regen. It's ridiculous.
The only place this system works is in PvP. And that's only because they take away all your regens and AOE heals so you're forced to use cure UI spam.

[TaleraRistain]

I'm glad you brought up the feeling of role actions logging in. I know a paladin and a warrior, and I heard the same thing from them. Even though the paladin looks really good(too good, even) right now, loading in and being like "welp, there goes protect and stoneskin and fracture and" and the warrior looking at all his cool buttons just crossed out... it felt awful. It wasn't exciting to look in the role actions and get my stuff back, it was demoralizing.

It broke my heart to take Stoneskin II off my bar.

[Fernosaur]

So, after playing WHM for a very decent amount of time, in dungeons and out, I'm actually surprised to say that I enjoy WHM less, despite the job not changing much.

Lilies aren't required, but because it's there, you have the desire to use it of course. So you'll find yourself forcing oppurtunites to use them when you really could have have just kept dpsing and used a regen. It's ridiculous.
The only place this system works is in PvP. And that's only because they take away all your regens and AOE heals so you're forced to use cure UI spam.

Tbh WHM is really fun and really interesting to play in PvP.

Hilariously enough, AST is borderline broken in PvP because it has a massive amount of instant heals, so it has the highest burst healing of the three, LOL.

Boy, they sure do love AST. I'm really glad I stepped out of healing permanently in this game.

[Hanayumi]

So been playing whm (original main sch but ouch... could definitely feel the dps loss) so yeah gave whm a shot instead. I have also been giving cure and cure II more priority over the other heals. So far its... so so, definitely need to remove the "in battle" aspect of lilies there are some prefect moments after a fight to stock up on a lily or 2, especially when there is already a gate to prevent a lily while overhealing, you have to actually heal some hp to gain a lily, so yeah 0 need for the in battle thing. Secondly, the cooldown reduction is fairly low to see much of a benefit, while soloing a bit I have mostly been using assize and with 3 lilies it only takes off like 12secs, hardly noticeable, really needs to shred a bit more to see some decent results. I would say something between the current % and maybe double, so something like 6%, 15%, 30%...