What exactly IS a White Mage?

[MOZZYSTAR]

AST has always had an instant heal, tbh, but Lady is just an additional one for level 70+. It's not usable in any other content.


I think I have seen WHMs struggle with an "identity," though. I often see some playing more like preventive healers (like SCH and nocturnal AST) than reactive healers (like WHM and diurnal AST are supposed to be).



Even so, I don't think much would need ot be changed for WHM. They're still they only "pure" reactive healer with assets AST doesn't have (like you guys get an aoe heal you can place on the ground so you can DPS simultaneously as it heals, AST doesn't have that. It has one where we need to stand perfectly still for, and another one that doesn't do anything until it "bursts.") that do give them an advantage in some situations. If anything needed to be changed, maybe higher healing potency to promote reactive healing as opposed to preventive healing? I haven't played WHM since HW so, I honestly don't know. :/


The way I have always seen them is that SCH's identity is shields and foresight, AST's identity is buffs and adaptability, and WHM's identity is "big heals" and reactive. Ideally, a scholar (or noct AST) would put up shields before a big aoe move and then WHM would follow up with their big heal a second or so after the big aoe.


They could also encourage that by making AST's diurnal sect's regens overlap with WHM's regens like they do with Noct's and SCH's shields (you can't have a noct. AST and a SCH in the same party because their shields overwrite each other instead of stacking). Right now AST's regens stack with WHM's regens, so it doesn't necessarily promote that preventive + reactive gameplay when the two classes are partnered up. (GRANTED, you will occassionally get the asshole AST who refuses to adapt to the situation/party set up and play the "wrong" sect anyway, but I think it could help with identity, maybe? Gameplay wise, anyway.)

[Lastelli]

They're still they only "pure" reactive healer with assets AST doesn't have (like you guys get an aoe heal you can place on the ground so you can DPS simultaneously as it heals, AST doesn't have that. It has one where we need to stand perfectly still for, and another one that doesn't do anything until it "bursts.") that do give them an advantage in some situations. If anything needed to be changed, maybe higher healing potency to promote reactive healing as opposed to preventive healing? I haven't played WHM since HW so, I honestly don't know. :/

I don't really agree. Instant CU + CO = better version of asylum, also provides damage mitigation and coupled with diurnal aspected helios = insanely powerful hots. Earthly star = "free" and stronger version of cure 3 that doesn't generate aggro, but requires you to plan a few seconds ahead. I mean...you can argue that earthly star and CU are "harder" to use, but they are very much comparable to other whm tools and are better in almost any possible scenario. Also, synastry.

[zuzu-bq]

Lillies from Stones would be cool. But what is the point if even 3 lillies' cooldown reduction is pretty much meaningless outside of Asylum. It's a 6s reduction on Benison, 12s on Tetra and Assize, 24s on Asylum. The only significant reduction is with Asylum. Lillies' biggest issue isn't how they're generated but rather, their effect.

[Seraphor]

Lillies from Stones would be cool. But what is the point if even 3 lillies' cooldown reduction is pretty much meaningless outside of Asylum. It's a 6s reduction on Benison, 12s on Tetra and Assize, 24s on Asylum. The only significant reduction is with Asylum. Lillies' biggest issue isn't how they're generated but rather, their effect.

Agreed, they amount to the same sort of thing as AST essential dignity reducing the cooldown of lightspeed, which is a minor mechanic compared to their signature card skills.

But again, im afraid making them so readily available through spamming stone spells, will just make them even less effective in execution.

[Erakir]

Why not?

SCH: the aetherpact gauge is mostly filled using energy drains (dps);
AST: weaving cards and healing abilities was made easier by shortening malefic 3 cast time (dps).

It is pretty obvious to me that at this point SE finally acknowledged that healers are supposed to dps, to the point that doing dps is beneficial both for AST and SCH from a gameplay perspective.

Preface: For the love of god no one take this as me suggesting healers shouldn't DPS, please - Of course I'm hitting things with rocks as much as I can~

On the note of SCH: You can play entirely without using Energy Drain or Bane and fill your fairy gauge up just as fast via lustrate, soil, excog, and indom, unless ED fills it faster in which case someone hit me with their book cause I missed that entirely if so. Fairy gauge didn't change how ED was used at all, that's existed as is for a long time, and those may be relics of being tied to arcanist as it is. If a scholar is healing their brains out because everything is going south, they're still getting their gauge filled all the same via the healing abilities.

On the note of AST: They made the act of weaving easier on AST via lowering cast times on DPS spells. Single target casts are already lower than the GCD albeit not as much. I don't see this as 'encouragement to DPS' and more that Square acknowledges that healers DO dps in raids and AST was clipping like a hedge trimmer as a result so we got the change to make them less miserable (this, of course, increased AST's DPS and I wouldn't be surprised if this came as a shock to them, but not the first time they're surprised at players optimizing what they're given). It's not quite the same thing. Square does know we DPS, yeah. The cleric stance change was a similar thing - it made the action of healers doing damage easier and less of a potential burden, but you don't see buffs to Cure based on damage.

Again, I don't personally have a problem with it. I just think we're more likely to see something along the lines of "Every spell has a 10% chance" than "Stone has a 50% chance."

For a long time I've seen Square be extremely cautious of anything that would 'goad' a new healer into thinking they have to be doing damage to access key parts of their class. Cards don't require it despite the malefic change, fairy gauge doesn't require it. This is why I don't think we'll see something specifically tied to damage abilities. I mean you go far enough back you'll see me wishing for something along the lines of Stone casts giving a stacking MP-reduction on Stoneskin so WHMs could stay in cleric stance a little easier and still toss out some tank healing. Always had resistance for the same reasons. "Something something requiring DPS to access a thingy."

Probably the best argument against this is ASTs were given lady/lord of crowns, and what else are they gonna do with an instant nuke than blow something up with it?

I just think we're less likely to see it tied to DPS specifically when there are other avenues still open that would accomplish the same thing - i.e. lily generation while playing well in a raid setting. I'd still rather have them on Aero than on Stone (if I had to pick one of those two) as another way to encourage healers who aren't DPSing to get a little something out of their best damage-per-cast spells.

[Grimoire-M]

The main problem with putting the Lily proc on Regen is Regen isn't gated to one target like the fairy is. That's also why I avoided Medica II. Aero spells have the same problem. Sure getting the proc multiple times per server tick would be great even if it's RNG based, but having played Bard I can see how frustrating that would be for an actual healer to have. Limiting it to on-cast would be healthier overall, and that still wouldn't be enough, ultimately. Maybe if Lilies were more granular like all of the other 0 to 100 job gauges that would be fine but I think that's the opposite of what people want.

That's why I went with Stone. Because you can only use it on one target, ever, and as you learn a fight you're using it more often than the Cure line and Medica rather than vice versa.

[Erakir]

The main problem with putting the Lily proc on Regen is Regen isn't gated to one target like the fairy is. That's also why I avoided Medica II. Aero spells have the same problem. Sure getting the proc per tick would be great even if it's RNG based, but limiting it to on-cast would be healthier overall, and that still wouldn't be enough, ultimately. Maybe if Lilies were more granular like all of the other 0 to 100 job gauges that would be fine but I think that's the opposite of what people want.

That's why I went with Stone. Because you can only use it on one target, ever, and as you learn a fight you're using it more often than the Cure line and Medica rather than vice versa.

I don't agree. You can see black mages at certain levels spreading their TC procs around anytime there's multiple mobs to warrant it that are spread out enough in order to both get DoTs rolling and double dip on extra proc chances, and similar effects causing procs in numerous other games. I'd argue it as far more interesting and dynamic than other options and something that helps teach healers to use their best spells accordingly in situations that require them.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Spending an extra GCD to keep regens up on two tanks in multi tank fights? Well here's other chances at lilies. Are these effects really so strong that you're thinking someone is gonna roll regen on 4 party members at all times? Goodness there's other ways to limit over generation of procs from things like this too, though I don't know if Square has coded any of them into their game yet.

Even then, for reasons stated above I don't think that a mechanic that leads to more lilies as you do less healing is a route Square will take, and a general % on cast would be what we'd get. Perhaps I'm wrong there, but haven't seen Square do similar things before.

[Grimoire-M]

I don't agree. You can see black mages at certain levels spreading their TC procs around anytime there's multiple mobs to warrant it that are spread out enough in order to both get DoTs rolling and double dip on extra proc chances, and similar effects causing procs in numerous other games. I'd argue it as far more interesting and dynamic than other options and something that helps teach healers to use their best spells accordingly in situations that require them.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Spending an extra GCD to keep regens up on two tanks in multi tank fights? Well here's other chances at lilies. Are these effects really so strong that you're thinking someone is gonna roll regen on 4 party members at all times? Goodness there's other ways to limit over generation of procs from things like this too, though I don't know if Square has coded any of them into their game yet.

They aren't at the moment. People are clamoring for it to be stronger, however. As well as generating more of them. My concern is the same issue I have with BRD, which you know all too well. Feast or Famine variance that cuts into being able to reliably generate enough Lilies at specific moments in order to do something specific with your healing cooldowns that then becomes frustrating to deal with. Or winds up the same way it is now, doing nothing at all.

I think the best idea would be to simply make every healing GCD give one on cast, rather than any per-tick RNG proc, period. Start there, at the very least.

[Ceallach]

AST doesn't need a Refresh to stay healthy if they're making use of lightspeed.
Earthly Start and Benefic II+Essential Dignity can get you full health. Collective can also spread shields.

It's similar results with minor inconveniences.

Giving the party a shield and spreading a single shield to other party members is different. Keep in mind that astrologian can't touch the keyboard/controller during Collective Unconsciousness to keep it active. Also, the fact you need three actions just to get one player up to full health is pretty telling.

You're not very familiar with healing in hard content, are you?

All 3 healers need refresh for high level play. None need it for low level play. Of course, when discussing "balance" we talk about high level play.

White mage and scholar need Refresh less badly in high level play because they can reliably give themselves back MP. White mage has Thin Air and Assize, and scholar has Aetherflow and Energy Drain, and both have abilities that heal that don't use MP.

Astrologian has to get lucky and Draw the Ewer, then actually use it, to get MP back without using Lucid Dreaming. When I said astrologian has to rely on Refresh, I meant that it hits downtime caused by low/no MP faster compared to the other healers, thereby making it worse.

[Rosa_Frandlia]

I had a situation in the Burn where I was glad I was whm recently. The tank pulled the usual first 2 sets of mobs, didn't use any CD's and dropped from 70k to less than 10k almost instantly. With the amount of damage he was taking, benediction was a no brainier and then pop Divine Bension after that. The no cast time double weave likely saved a wipe as even getting Lustraste/excog/Aldo would have likely had the tank down with no CD's up.

Maybe that's whm's niche, making up for bad tanks that don't use CD's. Of course for ones that can't hold aggro we all know what happens to WHM, but this one could hold aggro, When I had the same as a sch, party wiped although tank said "my bad".