What exactly IS a White Mage?

[IttyBitty]

The fact you couldn't figure out that WHM's gimmick is lilies (which are amazing in PVP due to the content featuring a much heavier reliance on GCD single target heals, as well as lilies providing a much more potent recast reduction [up to 50%]), not protect (which, to be fair, the PvP version is great), is pretty telling about the current state of affairs.

Saying WHM is "fine" when the class has a completely worthless, ignorable job mechanic, while also having no real strong point to it, is ridiculous. Every other class in the game at least has something it is supposed to excel at. WHM excels at nothing in comparison to its peers, beyond the nebulous usefulness of Cure 3.

[Gemina]

Lilies aren't a gimmick. Perhaps an attempt at one. At best, it is a passive trait that goes mostly ignored. You even said it yourself in your second clause. "It has a completely worthless, ignorable job mechanic". So why are you trying to say it has a gimmick?

Just because you are dissatisfied with how current WHM plays does not mean it's not fine, or broken, or whatever negative connotation you would like to insert. Fact of the matter is it can be used to clear any content in this game just fine. Unless you'd like to dispute this as well with something other than it doesn't perform up to SCH and AST. Understand, this does not make a job unplayable.

I know it doesn't have a strong point. I am saying this is OK. You can say it's not, which is fine. But if you attempt to do so under the grounds that the job is broken or unplayable, it will only be erroneous because that is simply not true. If we want to make WHM great again, it's just going swap places with another healer. If you have the answer to stop the maddening leapfrogging of jobs I am quite sure the devs, and myself, are all ears.

[Metsonm]

I don't really think it's accurate to say that just because something's viable for clears it shouldn't get looked at, or given a more structured identity. Literally every class in the game can clear everything (except this quick glance isn't showing any BLM or SAM clears for UwU, but I think that's more a lack of numbers than anything). So by your logic every single class is "fine". Dark Knight doesn't need the rework that's been promised. All the machinists complaining their job doesn't feel good have no ground to stand on.

Hell, Bard was still meta in Heavensward and that changed the most with the launch of Stormblood.

And it changed because people didn't think the identity fit the class.

Right now I have my WHM bar set up with my heals and regens and bubbles and oGCDs set up in a certain way. When I swap to AST it's the exact same bar. Just replace one bubble that grants a regen effect with another. Replace Tetra with Dignity. Replace Assize with Earthly Star. It doesn't feel like WHM is "in a niche of not having a niche", it just feels like a watered down AST. Its identity just feels like "Not astrologian" rather than something to stand on its own.

This was the case in Heavensward, and it was certainly the case in Stormblood with the change to role actions. No other class in the game got gutted harder than White Mage by those, further eroding its already fading sense of identity.

I don't even care if they make it as complicated as Scholar, or whatever. I just want it to feel different to Astro, and not because it feels like it's had a mechanic cut away. I'm not even too stubborn to demand they change AST because "we were here first", I just want ONE of them to change.

[Risvertasashi]

It doesn't need one. WHM is fine. It's niche is it has no niche.

-snip-

You're asking for a balance that already exists. They are balanced because all of them are viable in 8-man, and can be cleared regardless of composition. All jobs are not created equal. They just aren't, and that is the reality.

That is some really twisted logic.

Think we're going to have to agree to disagree. When WHM is only about equivalent in some areas and flat out weaker than the rest, with no defined strengths or advantages, I don't think white mage is balanced.

[Risvertasashi]

It doesn't need one. WHM is fine. It's niche is it has no niche.

-snip-

You're asking for a balance that already exists. They are balanced because all of them are viable in 8-man, and can be cleared regardless of composition. All jobs are not created equal. They just aren't, and that is the reality.

That is some really twisted logic.

Think we're going to have to agree to disagree. When WHM is only about equivalent in some areas and flat out weaker than the rest, with no defined strengths or advantages, I don't think white mage is balanced.

The only way to do this is to give them all the same abilities with maybe different names and animations, which would be boring.

Pretty much what SE did when creating AST. I have a problem with this for various reasons (constant balancing issues being one of them), but SE has repeatedly said they aren't changing it so the reality is: we have to ask for WHM vs AST to be balanced around this.

I don't really think it's accurate to say that just because something's viable for clears it shouldn't get looked at, or given a more structured identity. Literally every class in the game can clear everything (except this quick glance isn't showing any BLM or SAM clears for UwU, but I think that's more a lack of numbers than anything). So by your logic every single class is "fine". Dark Knight doesn't need the rework that's been promised. All the machinists complaining their job doesn't feel good have no ground to stand on.

Yeah. And this is how you know we're truly repeating heavensward again. Not sure why every time WHM is struggling, the go to defense for keeping WHM weaker than the others has to be "But it's fine in duty finder content!"

Least when you bring a BLM or a SAM, you know they can hit like a freight train, doing 1k+ DPS over the next highest - or more if the other DPS aren't particularly good. WHM just flat out offers less.

[Gemina]

snip.

What do you want looked at? Seriously what is it exactly? You want WHM to have more utility? OK, speaking in theory let's give it to them, keeping in mind SEs history with making job adjustments. What happens? It leapfrogs because it brings something better, or remains stagnant because it doesn't. Either way, a healer is assed out and the rabblers start to echo.

You say WHM has no identity now. I beg to differ. Just because AST is better at next to everything than WHM does not give this job an identity of its own. The job literally ripped off of the WHM handbook. It IS a WHM with cards. Despite how well it plays, I think AST is one of the poorest designs in FFXIV because the devs could not figure out how to give it its own unique playstyle and identity. It's the letter 'C' in the American alphabet. If you know what I mean.

Again though, and I will say it a hundred times over: WHM is fine. If it were up to me, AST is the job I would rework from the ground up. The reason why I wouldn't rework WHM despite its struggles is because it plays like a WHM. That is why I say it is fine. There's another job that also plays like a WHM, and that's AST, which I'm not OK with. Everyone says it, "AST is a WHM with cards" so how is it that WHM doesn't have it's own identity?

DRK is a different story. It's not fine. This is a job I look at and say just because it can clear content does not mean it doesn't have issues that needs be addressed. WHM and DRK are not on the same boat.

[Erakir]

Lilies aren't a gimmick. Perhaps an attempt at one. At best, it is a passive trait that goes mostly ignored. You even said it yourself in your second clause. "It has a completely worthless, ignorable job mechanic". So why are you trying to say it has a gimmick?

Because this is all in reference to the comment on PvP last page, where lilies ARE definitely more of WHM's thing due to the nature of PvP requiring more hardcasted direct heals with much greater return on the cooldown reduction, which also sees more use again due to the less scripted nature of PvP. This doesn't change that we all know how lackluster it is in PvE, but it is definitely a bigger factor in PvP.

If you have the answer to stop the maddening leapfrogging of jobs I am quite sure the devs, and myself, are all ears.

Sure. It's not necessarily easier, it's not necessarily fun for the devs, it has its own set of challenges. Said it in the past and I'll say it again. You have to differentiate classes enough to where analyzing their pros and cons with each other is much less tangible AND much more fight dependent. This also requires more varied content than what we have and more usable utility (Do note utility does not have to mean damage increases, it's a failing of XIV that they've gotten this mentality into people). WoW was doing this basically a decade ago, it's not a new thought process.

Nope, it doesn't stop a meta from existing. It opens up other doors for classes to be broken in other ways, but at the same time it opens up the potential for more combinations to work well off each other and to even play differently depending on who you've got with you in a fight. Yep, it's a big philosophy shift.

But Square seems to have no intention of designing content as such. Our extremely sad number of fights is part of it; you get less wiggle room to toy with. At best we got healing dragon heads in Shinryu EX, which is Valithria but not as interesting. At least it gave an idea of where it might be cool to have largesse and PoM both used specifically for healing. Doesn't have to be just healers, either. When you open up utility across the board for lots of jobs and not make everything immune to things in raids, you can get some interesting results. And I'll repeat, it has its own set of challenges to deal with.

However, so long as they continue this? So long as we have jobs that are as similar to one another as they are with fights having more or less the same types of challenges over and over again? We'll keep getting this war. Worst part is, it's basically for EVERY fight. The one who is behind will be behind in every fight. I vastly prefer other systems. God, it's going to become harder and harder as they keep adding DPS jobs and making the numbers match up well enough. It's another failing of only having damage to care about. Amazing how raise and refresh both muddy this water a little bit~

We're stuck with how Square is currently designing things, so we ask to be competitive in the ways that work with the current system. They're not changing AST. They've said so before. We're stuck with this horrible copy paste healer design and this is the result. Trust me I'd love to see AST changed. But it's seemingly not gonna happen.

By the way, two things.

One, before the AST changes, as good of QoL as they were, we had some of the best overall healer balance this game has ever seen. It was not without problems. Scholar was and is still an unquestionable god for raiding. Noct is still sad in comparison and Square will one day, if we're lucky, learn that buffing Asp Helios is not the way to make it comparable to SCH. All jobs could clear all content and some solo healing of ultimate kinda helped showcase this. The 'WHM progression, AST for DPS' was more accepted and at least seemed to be an alright compromise at the time. WHM lilies sucked and still sucked, but benison being not tied to them was a very welcome change that helped. We have watched happen exactly what we said was going to happen.

We went from what I would argue is BETTER healer balance to WORSE healer balance and that is somehow okay because WHM isn't 2.0 WAR levels?? (Neither was SCH, by the way, when it got its immediate adjustments during Stormblood's launch). No, that's not okay. That's a step down from where balance sat before, and I'm not okay with that. Nothing, nothing is broken right now by this logic and therefore it's okay and the developers shouldn't look at anything. No. Square might not care cause their numbers don't show a certain threshold or whatever, but if enough players are angry they take notice. See: the WHM pre-SB thread.

Second, don't ignore all the changes people have suggested as bandaid fixes that would not add any complexity to the job. Potency adjustments for DPS abilities, the 68 trait doing absolutely ANYTHING remotely tangible, enmity adjustments, changes to Plenary Indulgence to make it MORE friendly to use. There have been lots of these suggestions. There have been a lot of other ones too, because frankly people want their job to have a strength that isn't the "Netflix during dungeons" healer. The above changes also happen to be changes that would make the netflixing easier.

I take issue with people saying white mage is simple and braindead too. Hell, PI currently requires more planning to use well than any other healing ability in the game, and management of benison's CD to line up with good usage of it is a thing. It's not like Scholar isn't fantastic in dungeons too, and please don't tell me it's doing rocket science there because of Aetherflow charges and hitting a fairy regen button here and there. Scholar isn't as nearly as complex as people try to say as far as its skill floor is concerned.

I'll continue to say WHM is not broken broken at the moment but I'll also continue to argue for adjustments because this is the second expansion this has happened and it's the second expansion it's been avoidable/mitigatable with extremely simple changes, even if they're not the changes I'd ultimately want. It's the fact that there are SIMPLE changes to bring things more into balance, even if AST still stays on top in the raiding scene, that bothers me to no end.

Plus, I still want Square to live up to their own dumb word of White Mage being the raw damage healer, and until they change the dummies ingame that show you what you should be bringing to a group single target damagewise, I'm gonna hound them for it. We know why WHM brings the most dummy damage and why it doesn't hold up in raid content. We also know these were dummies were specifically introduced as raid benchmarks as an 'answer' to ACT. So. Square - get on it, thanks.

[Metsonm]

What do you want looked at? Seriously what is it exactly?

I don't even mind that White Mage isn't the best at everything. Even if 5.0 comes and goes and we're still sitting in 3rd place (or 4th if Dancer turns out to be a thing), that's fine. What bothers me is that it doesn't bring anything to really make up for it. It's like they're not even trying.

The issue is 100% that AST is just WHM with cards, and you know what the bottom line with that is? They have cards. That's their identity. And that's fine, in fact I think it's great. Unfortunately when you have <thing> and <thing with bonus> it kind of detracts from the original.

We could sit here and say that AST needs to be changed, and if Yoshi announced that was happening I'd be happy, but let's be honest: nobody wants things taken away when you could in fact add elsewhere. So the realistic answer is to fill the void that WHM had gouged out of it earlier. They tried it with the lilies, but they didn't go nearly far enough.

The overarching problem is their insistence that we need a pure healer. Which is a fantastic identity when you give it room to flex. But as has been said many times before, outside of extremely niche cases, AST dunks all over WHM in that regard, too. So comparing a pure healer to a healer + literally anything is already a losing battle because every healer can be a pure healer if required. If everyone's super, then nobody is.

It could be scholar is raw heals + shields, astro is raw heals + cards, and white mage is raw heals + regen or something. They could have gone for that. That would have given them an identity and probably wouldn't have left AST a quivering wreck as regens are a nice bonus to save a GCD here or there, but won't make or break fights. But as it stands, with AST being WHM + cards, WHM is really just AST - cards, and when you're already drawing a defecit you need to bring something to the table, which WHM really isn't.

The argument I've seen thrown around a lot is that we're the oGCD healer, but that's not really the case, is it?
-White Mage has Tetra (700 potency on 60s) and Astro has Dignity (400 potency, unless this calculation I'm looking at has been altered it hits 700 potency at 50% HP, which is when you'd be using it anyway, on 40s)
-WHM has Assize (300 damage, 300 healing, 15y, 60s) and AST has Star (150 damage, 540 healing, 8y, 60s). And AST's only gets stronger if you let it sit.. And as fights in this game are scripted heavily that's not an issue. The MP on Assize is nice, true.
-WHM has Asylum (100 healing for 24s for 800 total. 90s cooldown) and AST has Unconscious (150 healing for 18s for 900 total. 90s cooldown. Also damage reduction). Asylum requires the targets remain inside the bubble while AST can pop it then instantly drop it. Both are the same size.
-WHM has Plenary Indulgence which, let's be honest, isn't the best ability...it's ok to turn a 300 potency Medica into a 450 one, but it doesn't get too much play. Still pretty nice, but you need to hardcast to prep it so not really relevant to this point.
-WHM has Benediction (100% heal on 3 min) which people really should use more as an oGCD heal than they do because planning to use it does free up time, but in uncoordinated play I can understand people holding it. This is probably the only one so far I'd say that WHM has something over AST. And even then that's 3 minutes and potentially held.
-WHM has Benison (15% shield on 30s) which is actually really good after the changes cut the lily requirement. Only really useful for tankbusters or if you can just see that one guy is going eat it.
-AST has access to Lady of Crowns (500 healing, potentially every 30s). You'd want to avoid this if possible as if you have it then you don't have Balance/Spear, or even Lord, but it's still a really good ogcd heal.

Overall, I'd say AST is still the better ogcd healer. But I'll admit that depends how much weight you put on Bene/Beni.

Just give us something. Lack of identity isn't an identity.

[Risvertasashi]

Just because AST is better at next to everything than WHM does not give this job an identity of its own.

DRK is a different story. It's not fine. This is a job I look at and say just because it can clear content does not mean it doesn't have issues that needs be addressed. WHM and DRK are not on the same boat.

Your logic fascinates me, in a way - a similar way to an MC Escher painting.

Anyways. So there are many, many suggestions for how to help out WHM. Total reworks of lillies that community members have contributed detailed writeups about. Adding some utility (which WHMs in FF titles normally have, it's only FF14 where they don't). And many other things. But, ok, you don't like that.

So why not borrow from DPS balancing and just scale up WHM damage? Still plays exactly the same, doesn't lose any of its... "identity of having no identity" that you think it has.

But now it brings something to the table. It won't be meta without the buffs, but at least it can contribute to a faster overall kill time, help bring down DPS-check adds, and so on. And it doesn't require a lot of development work. Tweak some numbers and it's good. Vs the current situation where WHM-running teams are at a flat out disadvantage and will have a harder time dealing with DPS-check phases/adds/etc, as well as the overall enrage time.

--

But really, personally, I just want WHM to be good at something. I'd take any suggestion that makes WHM an asset instead of a liability.

[Seraphor]

I'd rather they not change too much with AST.
If the problem is that AST shares a base with WHM, plus cards, then the issue is that WHM doesnt have a signature. It needs a rework of lilies.