WHM 5.0 First Impressions

[Reiryuu]

We aren't supposed to melt things down as fast as a dps does. A dps has to finish the fight as quickly as possible because they can't keep themselves alive in longer fights. We can, and the trade off there is that we don't hit as hard.

Which is why literally in the next sentence I said that it made sense for it to be that way. But whereas they have many skills to utilize, I have 1 that I need to cast 10-12 times to kill the mob. That's not exactly engaging gameplay.

[Kuurei]

Which is why literally in the next sentence I said that it made sense for it to be that way. But whereas they have many skills to utilize, I have 1 that I need to cast 10-12 times to kill the mob. That's not exactly engaging gameplay.

Because our engaging gameplay is supposed to be related to our healing role.

When someone suddenly dips below half, we have plenty of tools to respond to that. We can Solace, Tetra, Benison, Assize, or stack Regen/Med2/Asylum depending on the serverity of the situation. Benediction exists too for when a GNB decides to pop Superbolide w/o warning and for no reason (Someone did this to me in Shisui last night lol).

[Trunks]

Because our engaging gameplay is supposed to be related to our healing role.

Cool story. Are they going to go back and redesign the ~98% of the game's content where that is currently not a reality?

[DiznypKC]

I think these changes have finally driven me away from healing altogether.

I’ve only made it to 74 on WHM and just cleared Titania reg. I’m not enjoying it. The class feels clunky and the healing counterintuitive. The skills don’t flow together nicely anymore; they have to be forced. It’s like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. And anything pre-50 feels even worse since Largesse was taken away and we have no other skills, at that level, that do what it does.

We shouldn’t have to leave a class to 80 to start enjoying the game. The healer job should have a fully realized kit by 50, and then have the skills powered up/new mechanics introduced with each expansion. Instead, it feels like each expac they take our abilities off the table and move them further away.

Honestly, I’m not even sure I want to continue leveling healer to 80 at this point. And that really, really sucks for me, as I’ve always played a healer and White Mage is my favorite job in the entire Final Fantasy franchise.

[Wilford111]

I think these changes have finally driven me away from healing altogether.

I’ve only made it to 74 on WHM and just cleared Titania reg. I’m not enjoying it. The class feels clunky and the healing counterintuitive. The skills don’t flow together nicely anymore; they have to be forced. It’s like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. And anything pre-50 feels even worse since Largesse was taken away and we have no other skills, at that level, that do what it does.

We shouldn’t have to leave a class to 80 to start enjoying the game. The healer job should have a fully realized kit by 50, and then have the skills powered up/new mechanics introduced with each expansion. Instead, it feels like each expac they take our abilities off the table and move them further away.

Honestly, I’m not even sure I want to continue leveling healer to 80 at this point. And that really, really sucks for me, as I’ve always played a healer and White Mage is my favorite job in the entire Final Fantasy franchise.

What, really? WHM feels mostly the same for me if not better due to instacast heals. Not sure where your complaints are coming from.

[DiznypKC]

What, really? WHM feels mostly the same for me if not better due to instacast heals. Not sure where your complaints are coming from.

Our insta casts are basically a Swiftcast+Cure II and Swiftcast+Medica macro. They’re both on the GCD so you can’t weave them, which still only leaves you the option of using Tetra, Assize, or Benediction if they’re off cooldown. Even still, incoming damage is still predictable so you have to force yourself to use the Afflatus spells, making them counterintuitive to the flow of the job. Essentially, it encourages a sit and wait to heal play style because you can’t use them to react as quickly as an oGCD heal.

Furthermore, as we progress through content, gear up, and learn mechanics, these spells will replace Cure II and Medica entirely, so why are they even there?

Lilies are still better off being ignored rather than being used as they generate, making Misery feel like a minor reward for a tedious chore.

Losing enmity drop on Lucid Dreaming makes losing the tank practically an instant wipe as all mobs will immediately for for healers and there’s nothing they can do about it anymore.

We still don’t have viable raid utility.

Lilies are useless from level 52-72.

We have no abilities that boost our healing power until Asylum, forcing us to be healbots in lower level content.

Notice I haven’t even mentioned DPS capabilities. This is just the healing kit.

Need I go on?

[DiznypKC]

Edit: lilies are useless from 52-74.

[Wilford111]

Our insta casts are basically a Swiftcast+Cure II and Swiftcast+Medica macro. They’re both on the GCD so you can’t weave them, which still only leaves you the option of using Tetra, Assize, or Benediction if they’re off cooldown. Even still, incoming damage is still predictable so you have to force yourself to use the Afflatus spells, making them counterintuitive to the flow of the job. Essentially, it encourages a sit and wait to heal play style because you can’t use them to react as quickly as an oGCD heal.

Furthermore, as we progress through content, gear up, and learn mechanics, these spells will replace Cure II and Medica entirely, so why are they even there?

Lilies are still better off being ignored rather than being used as they generate, making Misery feel like a minor reward for a tedious chore.

...

We still don’t have viable raid utility.

Lilies are useless from level 52-72.

We have no abilities that boost our healing power until Asylum, forcing us to be healbots in lower level content.

Notice I haven’t even mentioned DPS capabilities. This is just the healing kit.

Need I go on?

You're saying instant Cure II and Medica are bad things now? Also you don't need to "force" yourself to do anything in this game. If raid-wide damage occurs, typically I'll finish what I'm casting, throw up Divine Benison and Glare once more, then use my instant aoe heal once it's available. It's very satisfying imo.

They don't replace anything, they have a cost that runs out if you use them too much. We also still have Cure I and no one's complaining about that.

Misery feels like compensation for taking time to heal which I really appreciate.

We also out-dps SCH and AST by a large margin. Pretty sure it's an intentional design decision to not provide raid utility in exchange for personal dps. Kinda like Black Mage.

Even without Blood Lily, having instant heals is a godsend for me personally, so no they aren't useless.

You're complaining about not having heal boosts while other people are complaining about healing being far too easy. Pick one side.

As far as dps goes, we lost Aero III. Shrug

Everything I didn't reply to I mostly agree with.

[Reiryuu]

Because our engaging gameplay is supposed to be related to our healing role.

When someone suddenly dips below half, we have plenty of tools to respond to that. We can Solace, Tetra, Benison, Assize, or stack Regen/Med2/Asylum depending on the serverity of the situation. Benediction exists too for when a GNB decides to pop Superbolide w/o warning and for no reason (Someone did this to me in Shisui last night lol).

I seriously don't get people like you. Why is it that because I enjoy playing healers and that I choose to be a healer does it mean that I cannot have a fun and engaging experience in all aspects of a game including solo play? It's 2019. We should be allowed to expect more from game designers than age old tropes from the 1980s. There are plenty of other games out there that do this, FFXIV should not get special consideration.

[DiznypKC]

snip.

I didn’t say instant Cure II instant Medica are bad. They’re redundant. We already have those abilities. All they did was make it so we can use them every 30 seconds without a cast time or cost. Woo. /s This is fine for prog or leveling content, but any healer who understands a fight and the incoming damage doesn’t need two extra GCD’s to manage. It literally takes you out of your rhythm.

And yes, they WILL replace Cure II and Medica eventually.

Misery is a compensation, but only in a pack of mobs. On a single target it’s a loss. But again, I’m not even talking about DPS capabilities because that wasn’t my point to begin with.

Again, not talking about DPS, but I don’t consider pDPS to be raid utility. We’re a support class, we should be able to provide some sort of support.

I’m glad you’re happy with the blood lily mechanic. It feels clunky to me.

I’m complaining about not having any healing boosts PRE Asylum, when our only options are Cure I, II, III, Medica, Medica II, and Benediction. Notice, all of those except Benediction are GCD. Largesse/Divine Seal was an important ability to us in earlier content since we don’t have oGCD heals to weave. The extra boost of healing is essential in big pulls. That’s not a side. That’s a fact.

Not once in my comment did I argue for one side or the other. I merely explained why the changes have turned me off from the job, as you had requested. White Mage used to have a steady, flowing rhythm to it. That’s completely gone now.

If you want to talk DPS healer vs Pure healer, then fine. Every job in the game should have a more complex DPS rotation other than 211111111111111121... period. There’s no argument to be had there. I couldn’t give a flying fig if it’s one extra DoT in Aero III or an actual lore based elemental rotation. We still have to complete solo duties, and it’s boring AF. Yes, two dots with shorter, differing timers is still far more engaging than what we have now.

So I don’t know what else to say to you. The job doesn’t flow and it hasn’t been fun to play. Yes this my opinion and it’s subjective but you asked and I explained it.