What exactly IS a White Mage?

[HyperiusUltima]

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".

So you’re saying that WHM is a healer for bad Tanks...that’s not necessarily their niche; that’s just someone refusing to use Defensive CDs and forcing the healer to use their oGCDs for it.

[Risvertasashi]

So you’re saying that WHM is a healer for bad Tanks...that’s not necessarily their niche; that’s just someone refusing to use Defensive CDs and forcing the healer to use their oGCDs for it.

I mean if you want to talk healer for bad tanks, you can combine synastry with largesse for 1144 potency per benefic 2 cast, or pop dissipation and drop 6 lustrates on him. WHM isn't exactly special here.

But yeah that notion was flawed from the start.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

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".

No offense, but you may simply be a more experienced White Mage. Let's look at the tools of Scholar and Astro and see how they can respond to this same scenario.

Astro

Lightspeed + Essential Dignity + Largesse offers an instant 45,000 heal at i377, plus additional instant cast Benefic IIs at half the MP cost. I still have Collective Unconscious, Snastry and two options of extending all of these effects in Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition

Scholar

Excog + Emergency Tactics Adlo will cover the initial damage burst, allowing you to potentially Swift another Aldo for the shield. Blow a Lustrate and immediately use Aetherpact then Dissipation once it wears off. Just the first portion of that covers approximately 50,000 HP

The only difference in these scenarios compared to White Mage is the other healers need to work a little harder and be more mindful of their kit. Regardless, if I'd be more inclined to tell the tank to use CDs or replace him with someone who does. A job's balance shouldn't be determined by correcting someone else playing theirs poorly.

[zuzu-bq]

Snip

The moment you're relying on GCD healing, you already "lost". That is why WHM excels in dungeons and sucks in raids. Their dungeon kit makes them use the least amount of GCD healing as possible thanks to Holy's stuns and their kit makes them GCD to aoe heal on raids to properly use Cure 3 and Plenary.

[IttyBitty]

The moment you're relying on GCD healing, you already "lost". That is why WHM excels in dungeons and sucks in raids. Their dungeon kit makes them use the least amount of GCD healing as possible thanks to Holy's stuns and their kit makes them GCD to aoe heal on raids to properly use Cure 3 and Plenary.

The current discussion is about a tank that isn't using its cooldowns. All healers "lose" in such a scenario. WHM being able to delay switching to GCD heals for a femtosecond isn't a particularly stellar selling point.

[JunseiKei]

Is it potential overheal that's adding to the aggro from WHM? Or is it simply just too high multipliers causing a giant aggro spike?

I didn't quite see anyone answer this, only that they lack any sort of enmity reduction outside of Lucid Dream.

1 point of healing generates 1.5 enmity, moves that generate enmity (explicitly state they increase enmity) generate x3 enmity per damage, AoE heals generate 1.8 enmity per point healed, overhealing generates 2 enmity per point overhealed. However, take this information with a grain of salt as it's old and unsure how correct it is (given how they listed how provoke works correctly during a time when it was largely not understood makes me think there is some creditability in there). Pretty sure this was before tanks had their enmity increased sometime and I don't think it accounts for tank stances' multipliers. If anyone has updated information for this, please post it ('cause I'd certainly like to have it D: ).

Unsure how other WHMs use their CDs, but usually Lucid is the first thing I use, popping when my MP bar is between 80-85% full. Afterwards, pretty much pop it whenever it comes back up. I can't say I've really encountered problems with aggro management on my part, especially if shirking is happening (or a ninja is present).

AST's stances reduce enmity gained by .75 (which compounded with their Luminiferous Aether and some other combination of things, you could reduce enmity so much that you actually cause the monster to never drop aggro, even when provoke is used. Keep in mind, this only happened if you pulled with negative enmity already).

Right now, I'd change lilies to proc off of our DoTs (in a manner similar to BRDs and their DoTs critting for certain attacks) and when 3 lilies are gained, party members within x distance of the WHM gain a holy attribute/blessing/augment (similar to confession) that raises their DPS (either a flat gain like balance, crit, faster attack speed) that lasts for a certain amount of time. As for encouraging us to DPS more, it is really not that hard to throw Aero II up in the very least - that is part of why I suggested DoTs and not just damage spells. It can even be from actually casting/applying the DoT and not triggered off of tick damage itself (but I'd still suggest it only applying to Aero II because of how easy it is to apply that alone if need be).

[Ghishlain]

-Snip Regarding Enmity-

There's some incorrect info here regarding enmity so here are a few corrections.

Short and skinny of healing enmity is that each point of healing generates 0.5 enmity regardless of the heal is effective or not (AKA, healing and overhealing generate the same amount of enmity). This is modified by passives such as the enmity reduction from sects which was correctly listed as 0.75. For reference, players can refer to Reddit Enmity Wiki Page.

Regarding AST in the 3.X era, when the introduced the passive enmity reduction to sects, it was possible for AST's to generate negative enmity with a combination of Sect Bonus, Luminious Aether (which reduced enmity generation while the buff was active), and Ninja's Smokescreen. This then caused the AST's enmity to negatively overflow if all of this was done at the beginning of the fight (enmity value goes below 0) and cause all sorts of whacky stuff.

What makes WHM's aggro problems the most pronounced of the three healers is the fact that is has no passive enmity bonuses in their kit.

AST has the -25% enmity they get for just have a sect on. Additionally; the strongest heal they have, Earthly Star, generates no healing enmity whatsoever. Synastry's healing bonus also generates no enmity, based on the Reddit enmity page.

SCH has no passive bonuses to enmity generation but their healing enmity is split between their pet and themselves, thus giving them a pseudo enmity passive.

WHM has none of these benefits and can only rely on hate dumps from Lucid Dreaming - a CD that all healers have access too. It would be nice to see some assistance for this in future.

[zuzu-bq]

The current discussion is about a tank that isn't using its cooldowns. All healers "lose" in such a scenario. WHM being able to delay switching to GCD heals for a femtosecond isn't a particularly stellar selling point.

Yeah, I'm complementing that discussion by saying WHM is the healer that will use the least resources to heal a tank like that.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

WHM has none of these benefits and can only rely on hate dumps from Lucid Dreaming - a CD that all healers have access too. It would be nice to see some assistance for this in future.

I agree. I just hope the assistance doesn't come in the form of a completely new skill for them in 5.0, taking up a precious skill slot for the expansion.
Enmity is an old problem that should be addressed separately from the new skills we all get in the expansion.

[Ghishlain]

I agree. I just hope the assistance doesn't come in the form of a completely new skill for them in 5.0, taking up a precious skill slot for the expansion.
Enmity is an old problem that should be addressed separately from the new skills we all get in the expansion.

I agree.

Though on the topic of new expansion skills, I would kill to have a second Swiftcast >>; WHMing Omega during Panto2 irritates me so much ATM and I'd love just a second Swift to get through that nonsense with something other than spamming Aero.