White Mage - Skill Acquisition Changes

[Cheremia]

SCH isn’t much better.
With SCH you technically have AoE, but it requires you to apply two DoTs and Bane, that’s 3 GCD’s to set up an AoE DoT. By that point, everything is half dead and a DoT isn’t the most efficient method you could use.
But at least it has Shadowflare by 50.

You're not wrong but at least they CAN aoe in SOME way. They learn Bane by 30 and even if stuff is half dead when you do both dots and then bane them, it's something. And they learn Miasma II at 50 too... it does damage and dot. So they can aoe pretty early and it feels like something.
Ast on the other hand.... Being in level 50 dungeons and not being able to aoe sucks a lot

[Kurando]

And they learn Miasma II at 50 too...

Miasma II is level 46, which means both SCH and WHM (with Holy) get an aoe before level 50 unlike AST which has to wait a bit longer for that Gravity.

[Jonnycbad]

Whm does feel a bit weaker than it used to at low levels because they took a lot away from WHM. WHM used to have Stoneskin, Cleric Stance, Shroud of Saints, Esuna, Divine Seal, but those were all mostly either deleted or repurposed as cross role skills.

[Veis_Alveare]

Whm does feel a bit weaker than it used to at low levels because they took a lot away from WHM. WHM used to have Stoneskin, Cleric Stance, Shroud of Saints, Esuna, Divine Seal, but those were all mostly either deleted or repurposed as cross role skills.

The worst part about WHMing low-level things after also playing AST in them is the lack of an oGCD heal (AST gets Essential Dignity in time for Sastasha) and to a lesser extent no mobility option (AST has Lightspeed crazy early, like level 6 or something) and these combine to make WHM just feel clunky and awkward by comparison.

I agree not having AoE at 50 is annoying as an AST. I used to dread alliance roulette when I was leveling for that very reason, going into LotA and just basically being useless for the first section by comparison to other healers.

[Irenia]

Eh, CNJ/WHM feels fine at 'class' levels as long as you remember to GCD heal due to how broken Stone II is at that stage.

SCH may be EZ mode due to the fairy, but hits like a noodle.

AST is good as long as ED is up, but otherwise Malefic sits in between Stone II and Ruin.

It may suck having to GCD heal, but it's nothing like doing damage like a DPS.

[Jonnycbad]

The worst part about WHMing low-level things after also playing AST in them is the lack of an oGCD heal (AST gets Essential Dignity in time for Sastasha) and to a lesser extent no mobility option (AST has Lightspeed crazy early, like level 6 or something) and these combine to make WHM just feel clunky and awkward by comparison.

I agree not having AoE at 50 is annoying as an AST. I used to dread alliance roulette when I was leveling for that very reason, going into LotA and just basically being useless for the first section by comparison to other healers.

You don't need an oGCD heal at level 16, there's nothing in that level range that has a tank buster. Also Lightspeed just makes spells cast INSTANTLY...BUT it still makes the spell retain its 2.5s recast, and thus the # of heals over time is the same. So the # of Cures over 10s vs Benefics weith Lightspeed are identical, just that Lightspeed casted spells can be used while moving (the only benefit is for spells that have longer than 2.5s cast, like Gravity and Ascend).

Low level WHM has a 200 potency damage spell (Stone II), which AST doesn't get a comparative spell until level 64, and SCH doesn't get until 54 (still 10 pot weaker than Stone II).

I think they should remove Fluid Aura completely and change it to something else because it's very worthless and WHM already has Repose. It used to be an oGCD damage but now it's just bind/knockback. It could be replaced with something more interesting, like an oGCD heal or a targeted damage buff. In FFXI WHM had a skill called Auspice, which when casted on party members, enchanted their melee attacks with light damage. Maybe WHM could get as their level 15 skill a spell when inflicted on a mob, lets the mob take 5% more damage for 10 seconds. Kind of like a Trick Attack but more like an inverse Eye4Eye. Or maybe they can get an oGCD that enchants the melee with a "Sword Oath" buff for 15 seconds, adding 50 potency damage to their auto attacks.

[Rosa_Frandlia]

You don't need an oGCD heal at level 16, there's nothing in that level range that has a tank buster. Also Lightspeed just makes spells cast INSTANTLY...BUT it still makes the spell retain its 2.5s recast, and thus the # of heals over time is the same. So the # of Cures over 10s vs Benefics weith Lightspeed are identical, just that Lightspeed casted spells can be used while moving (the only benefit is for spells that have longer than 2.5s cast, like Gravity and Ascend).

Low level WHM has a 200 potency damage spell (Stone II), which AST doesn't get a comparative spell until level 64, and SCH doesn't get until 54 (still 10 pot weaker than Stone II).

I think they should remove Fluid Aura completely and change it to something else because it's very worthless and WHM already has Repose. It used to be an oGCD damage but now it's just bind/knockback. It could be replaced with something more interesting, like an oGCD heal or a targeted damage buff. In FFXI WHM had a skill called Auspice, which when casted on party members, enchanted their melee attacks with light damage. Maybe WHM could get as their level 15 skill a spell when inflicted on a mob, lets the mob take 5% more damage for 10 seconds. Kind of like a Trick Attack but more like an inverse Eye4Eye. Or maybe they can get an oGCD that enchants the melee with a "Sword Oath" buff for 15 seconds, adding 50 potency damage to their auto attacks.

One thing to remember on fluid aura, it is learned by watching a water elemental during the 15 class quest. Any change away from water would require reworking the quest and I guess with new game+ we'd be able to replay it. I just don't see that happening, but maybe with new game+ they will.

As for deleting it as others suggest, I doubt cnj would be the only class to have no spell for the level 15 class quest were you learn you can get skills from quests.

[Shurrikhan]

One of my fondest memories as a new player back in ARR was playing on a 8-12 FPS laptop and healing the tank through 2/3rds of the last boss on Keeper of the Lake as a BLM, because the healer had died to some random AoE in the first phase. The other DPS kept themselves alive via bloodbath while I used manaward and the garbage Physicks were enough to keep the tank alive the entire time. Plus I sometimes used Physick in A4N in order to ensure I could soak two orbs when that instance was new.

Mind you it wasn't all that interesting in retrospect, but it's proof that those instances were pretty weak compared to what people talk about for balance.

Similar story, but as a 4-man SMN group back in Stone Vigil for speed-leveling back when the game first came out. Physick turned out to be a better use of our filler GCDs than Ruin, so we got about as much healing and way more damage just running any given SMN than a SCH. And then with a Titan or two instead of tanks... Everything just melted.

[Atlantasia]

Eh.... I really can't understand how people can be so excited about that trash spell.
I mean, we're talking about a 10% max hp shield unusable in combat. How is that even remotely interesting?
Utterly trash in a raiding environnement (I mean, it wouldn't have any impact in any boss from os1 to 12, because 10% max hp on the very first AoE is just barely noticeable)
Barely useful in dungeon, since only the tank is actually being hit... 10% max hp for a swiftcast, what is it? One regen tick saved? (technically you got Divine Benison which does the same, is ogcd and usable in battle)

And instead (not sure "instead" is appropriate... not like they serve the same purpose) we have Plenary Indulgence, an ogcd that can reach 450 potency heal, and you're trying to figure out "when it has a purpose"?

Easy, anytime you can weave, even if only for the 150 on the tank, it's still better than a 10% max hp shield that will be soaked by the first explosion the boss will deal (which is, in most scenario, not the one people care about)
Ofc, if the hardest fight you've done is o9s or o10s, ok fine maybe you might have an issue finding a use of PI, after all, these fight (especially o9s) require so little healing, 2 fairy could heal the fight. (Beside Earthphase and ArkMorn)

Original Stone Skin was an 18% shield with Granite Skin Trait at level 36 by the way, not just 10%. :3 Prior to Heavenward when it was nerfed to 10% it was a much better and more useful spell. Better than Divine Benison currently is because it could be casted on the entire party throughout the fight as a GCD spell and Benison is only 15%.

XD So I will completely miss my Stoneskin as it originally was, because it was extremely helpful for mechanics back in the day, especially for raid content.

[Veis_Alveare]

You don't need an oGCD heal at level 16, there's nothing in that level range that has a tank buster. Also Lightspeed just makes spells cast INSTANTLY...BUT it still makes the spell retain its 2.5s recast, and thus the # of heals over time is the same. So the # of Cures over 10s vs Benefics weith Lightspeed are identical, just that Lightspeed casted spells can be used while moving (the only benefit is for spells that have longer than 2.5s cast, like Gravity and Ascend).

Low level WHM has a 200 potency damage spell (Stone II), which AST doesn't get a comparative spell until level 64, and SCH doesn't get until 54 (still 10 pot weaker than Stone II).

I think they should remove Fluid Aura completely and change it to something else because it's very worthless and WHM already has Repose. It used to be an oGCD damage but now it's just bind/knockback. It could be replaced with something more interesting, like an oGCD heal or a targeted damage buff. In FFXI WHM had a skill called Auspice, which when casted on party members, enchanted their melee attacks with light damage. Maybe WHM could get as their level 15 skill a spell when inflicted on a mob, lets the mob take 5% more damage for 10 seconds. Kind of like a Trick Attack but more like an inverse Eye4Eye. Or maybe they can get an oGCD that enchants the melee with a "Sword Oath" buff for 15 seconds, adding 50 potency damage to their auto attacks.

You're looking at it literally all wrong.

ED saves you a GCD heal and is generally enough to heal through all the lowbie dungeons without having to waste GCDs on healing like WHM does. With the Malefic cast time reduction you don't even need to clip your GCD to do so.

Lightspeed is nice for the movement and MP cost reduction, especially if you need to raise anyone before you get access to Lucid.

Your priorities are based around the idea of constantly healing which is just... not how the game works?