Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Risvertasashi]

I finally got to level 70 on WHM. I have completed the full MSQ and have participated in all the EX dungeons but I haven't done any EX Primals just yet (Waiting for the second tank in my static to get caught up before participating).

I would be interested to hear your thoughts after you have done them, since they are (Susano ex especially) a bit movement intensive.

[Erakir]

I would be interested to hear your thoughts after you have done them, since they are (Susano ex especially) a bit movement intensive.

I'll give you my thoughts, in that case. Been putting it off.

Been 70 for a bit, done both extremes, think that means I've pretty much done all content except the jump puzzle~

-MP is very much not an issue if people are performing well. Royal Menagerie is going to be one where you'll often be taxed because the people doing the fight are often new or aren't raiders, and it's a big step up from most required story bits in the game. It's a lot to swallow for some players, leading to many more deaths, much more damage taken, and a significantly longer fight than it needs to be. I often go low or even dry there simply because, yeah, there's lots of people getting themselves knocked off or otherwise killed by standing in certain bad things.

-Susano/Lakshmi? No MP issues at all outside of learning and hitting enrage - usually only happening if I've managed to eat the floor myself and everything's on cooldown. Susano in particular lets you line up Thin Air for every other set of Ukemis and just bomb everyone with Cure 3. Benison can be used pretty well for the tankbuster there, not that it's necessary but it's nice. It's also convenient to help buffer the tank eating orbs, Asylum is tailored to work with the giant sword, you can even drop it down while people are getting lightning-rooted as a way to help buffer the tank when you're jumping back and forth. Put it in the giant chasm and people can be in the bubble on either side. I also drop it when stones go out so I can contribute to DPS easier after the AoEs make you run around while the tank's still eating damage.

-Benison in general does exactly what I expected it to. It works great as filler every 30ish seconds or so, and it can be used for pre-planned mitigation though you gotta work for it a little bit. I miss stoneskin for other reasons, yes, but benison is and should be something used with regular frequency. One thing I do not miss is stoneskin's delay in activation. Benison is pretty much there as quick as you would hope it is once applied.

-Lily generation is typically fine. I find myself in situations where I wish I had one for a benison and nobody's going to be hurt for a bit, but that's about it. As before, it sucks that prehealing will not generate a lily. The return on them...meh, but the generation is fine.

-The 58 trait is as bad as we all knew it'd be. I stood in front of a dummy and spammed cures for 6-7 minutes once. It procced 5 times I believe, and that's in an absolute cure-spam scenario. It's already a small cooldown reduction on healing abilities which we've talked about at length already, and you're unlikely to see more than, like, 2-3 procs over an entire fight as it is.

-Plenary Indulgence is not as bad as everyone is making it out to be, but it's not exactly fantastic either and leaves a lot to be desired. It's far more annoying to track in 8 mans than 4 mans, and stepping over dual WHM to see what member has which WHM's confessions is even worse. Yes it's doable, but for an instant ability, having to manually target to see if it's going to heal who you think it will is...clunky at absolute best. As a single WHM, it's tracakable, it could just use improvement there. It's the same sort of "Fight the UI" difficulty they specifically said they wanted to get away from this expansion, perhaps in its worst form ever seen - as such, I'm going to continue making a fuss about it since it's directly counter to their own stated goal.

-The proc rate on PI, given everything we have with it - there's lots of ways I feel it could be redone or retuned. It's still very uncommon for me to see a 2 stack, and I've seen a 3 stack maybe like...twice? The ol' "add regen ticks" would hopefully be a very simple change and is one of the ones I feel could retune the ability for the better to see more consistent returns in all content, while allowing it to naturally stack some. There are many other ways I've thought up, such as a running counter to give someone a stack every time they've received x amount of healing from you (Definitely leading to more when you're healing heavily), but I feel regen tick would be a simple one that would work.

-The effect of PI itself sees far greater returns in 4 mans where a tank can pull 2-3 groups, where despite what everyone is saying, you WILL be tossing out a reasonable amount of cure 2s since the mobs are not currently going to die 3 seconds after the holy stuns wear off. Use it as buffer like Benison or a planned tetra, not as emergency-bene/emergency-tetra. On big pulls I often see it proc at least once, and to be honest between benison, PI, Largesse, PoM, tetra, Asylum, Assize, Thin Air, and last resort bene, I feel like a -GOD- in 4 mans right now. We knew WHM would be the king of 4-mans, but it feels like I have a ridiculous amount of options on every normal pull. Less so on the bosses, and as such....

-As we also imagined, the kit does not come together as well in 8 mans. You cannot control the health of the tank as much, leading to a decent chance of not having a good time to hit PI (see SCH concerns over their 50% hp proc heal, but to a lesser degree - however ours is a proc and we have 0 control over when it'll show up). There are far more boss-jump phase mechanics, and a heavier emphasis on AoE. Despite still curing a decent amount of the time, it's certainly less than big pulls in 4-mans - I generate less lilies and less confessions. There are more planned times for Asylum/Assize so the CDR of lilies isn't as noticeable. I still make use of all the abilities, but they definitely do not shine here as much.

-The lack of raid utility and the like is something we'll have to evaluate once Omega comes around. Susano and Lakshmi are so easy that we really can't discern much from it. Our personal DPS is higher but it's not like we open up a bajillion more chances to DPS than other healers can. If there's room for AoE damage, Aero 3 and Holy will do us well, but AST won't be far behind, especially since they're already bringing the potential balance.

-That said, I feel fine in the trials at the moment. I cannot compare to AST, as I've never leveled it, but I've seen convenient things like Noct AST completely able to negate every knockback in Susano with instant shielding, and earthly star is also a ridiculously potent heal as we all know, and they happen to line it up with Ukemi too cause why not. It definitely feels like having someone who can shield is beneficial in general, mind you, but I've had no problems with mobility in Susano or anything like that. Wipe recovery via Cure 3 is doable there as well. We have a strength in massive MP economy, we're fairly good in single target sustain with Benison and PI (which I feel could still use tweaks), and good enough in AoE healing. They're still holding onto that "You have Cure 333333333 omg" as one of our biggest pros, I feel, and they won't be able to do that forever as they keep mitigating everyone else's lack of it.

I still feel we come up short (As did SCH) compared to the godly AST brothers out there right now who simply bring so much to every table outside of 4-man trash pulls. But overall I don't feel useless by any stretch of the imagination. I also feel our kit was largely designed around playtesting in 4-mans, as it simply works better there.

[VanilleFang]

I've actually meant to ask this a while ago...

How are people getting through pulls in SB dungeons without using Cure II/Cure? I'd like to think of myself as fairly good at healing dungeons so I'm wondering if I am doing something wrong or people are exaggerating.

[xNewbx]

I've actually meant to ask this a while ago...

How are people getting through pulls in SB dungeons without using Cure II/Cure? I'd like to think of myself as fairly good at healing dungeons so I'm wondering if I am doing something wrong or people are exaggerating.

Liars. Liars everywhere.

Those comments are secretly referring to old content where you out gear the dungeons and almost never have to heal. Any time you see a comment saying that, they have yet to actually experience the new content. Although by now I imagine most of them have been through it.

[VanilleFang]

Liars. Liars everywhere.

Those comments are secretly referring to old content where you out gear the dungeons and almost never have to heal. Any time you see a comment saying that, they have yet to actually experience the new content. Although by now I imagine most of them have been through it.

That's what I was thinking but I didn't want to make assumptions.

There were quite a few posts earlier in this thread that said like "only got 2 lilies my whole run of x SB dungeon" which I thought was incredibly suspect.

[AlphaSonic]

That's what I was thinking but I didn't want to make assumptions.

There were quite a few posts earlier in this thread that said like "only got 2 lilies my whole run of x SB dungeon" which I thought was incredibly suspect.

I only got 1 Confession stack during a dungeon.

[VanilleFang]

I only got 1 Confession stack during a dungeon.

That makes sense. Confessions are garbage.

[Hestzhyen]

So I have WHM to 70, and I've played it in all the content I can. Have my Susano'o weapon too. The sky isn't falling but I'm not really enthusiastic either.

- Outside of Benison, lily benefits are mostly irrelevant. The amount of CDR they give is not very noticeable. Either you have enough healing with your whole kit, or you don't.
- Benison is great since Stone Skin was removed, but I wish it was up more reliably.
- MP efficiency is top-tier.
- Plenary Indulgence and Confessions feel extremely underwhelming, especially for a lvl 70 ability. Wouldn't mind replacing it with something different.
- In that same vein, PI is impractical to trigger on more than one person (if you can even get the stacks for it). Is it intended to be a "nice to have if you have it" spell? It feels bad to get, honestly. I don't fish for it, I don't even care if I get it. Why does it exist, as the last thing we learn no less?
- I don't want or need to see the other WHM's Confession stacks.

[Saraphin]

That's what I was thinking but I didn't want to make assumptions.

There were quite a few posts earlier in this thread that said like "only got 2 lilies my whole run of x SB dungeon" which I thought was incredibly suspect.

Lilies? nah, can get plenty of those, confessions? i get more Free Cure 2s than confessions, and it's at a lower Proc %

[DreamWeaver]

I've actually meant to ask this a while ago...

How are people getting through pulls in SB dungeons without using Cure II/Cure? I'd like to think of myself as fairly good at healing dungeons so I'm wondering if I am doing something wrong or people are exaggerating.

Rotating between Divine Seal Regen, Asylum, Tetra, Assize, Benediction is good enough.

If you meant literally ZERO cures, yeah that's kinda BS, but rotating your oGCDs between pulls, you'll probably need to cast a single Cure II for every pull or so.