White Mage Flavor in 6.0

[Almagnus1]

Honestly when I first started out, I thought WHM was the best job only to realize that AST and old SCH are far better in terms of rewarding you for being optimal, especially AST.

Not everyone has to like WHM though, as there will soon be three other healer jobs. One way to show SE that WHM isn't doing well is for everyone complaining about WHM to STOP PLAYING WHM. If SE sees that usage data for WHM drop through the floor, they will re-evaluate the class, but until people stop playing WHM, SE will look at the metrics and go "this is fine".

[Grimoire-M]

Not everyone has to like WHM though, as there will soon be three other healer jobs. One way to show SE that WHM isn't doing well is for everyone complaining about WHM to STOP PLAYING WHM. If SE sees that usage data for WHM drop through the floor, they will re-evaluate the class, but until people stop playing WHM, SE will look at the metrics and go "this is fine".

Not everyone who likes WHM wants it to remain 'simple' to the point it lacks core tools that make it difficult to play at a high level. I don't even think it's unfair that you to want White Mage to be powerful, but it has to come with work, some complexity cost that puts it in-line but distinct from the other two healers, and it's not even much of an ask.

Once again I am asking you to do your homework. Read guides. Compare toolkits. Fix your melds. Play the game. Try to get better at it. Not break out the spreadsheet and optimize your GCD and cooldown rotation to a science level, just try to minimize your overhealing and movement in roulettes. You don't have to be perfect or dedicate all your free time as you're doing this either, just make some effort when you do decide to play. Cause it doesn't take a 'WoW Elitist' (I've never even played WoW. I'm a filthy Runescaper) to see WHM's only strengths are Thin Air raises, Holy on trash mobs, and Cure III spam for enrages. In every other aspect, AST and SCH are good enough, have the only options available, and/or are straight up better because SE doesn't push healers hard enough in general. Play the jobs with the intent to improve and you will see the differences we're talking about.

[Liam_Harper]

Not everyone has to like WHM though, as there will soon be three other healer jobs. One way to show SE that WHM isn't doing well is for everyone complaining about WHM to STOP PLAYING WHM. If SE sees that usage data for WHM drop through the floor, they will re-evaluate the class, but until people stop playing WHM, SE will look at the metrics and go "this is fine".

WHM has the issue that it only feels bad once you learn how to play well. That's when you notice clipping, lack of weave and mobility, conflicting toolkit, no engagement and so on. Most players don't even know what a clip or weave it, press Medica II and Regen and are happy because the party survived. Long term they'd probably enjoy an improved version of WHM even more, but they've never experienced that so they just stay content with what they have.

Healer as a role has been shedding a lot of good players, but those are filled in by players who are drawn to a role that rewards them with Normal, EX and even Savage clears despite playing their class terribly. Healers can get away with about half the uptime of a dps and often no one will care, which attracts people who like putting in the minimum effort. This affects the game for everyone in ways that might not be apparent, such as poor healing, longer dungeons and harder enrage checks, but most people wouldn't assume the healer could have that impact. Which is why player participation metrics are a poor measurement and a class should never be designed around minimum effort as a selling point.

[Rilifane]

Not everyone has to like WHM though, as there will soon be three other healer jobs. One way to show SE that WHM isn't doing well is for everyone complaining about WHM to STOP PLAYING WHM. If SE sees that usage data for WHM drop through the floor, they will re-evaluate the class, but until people stop playing WHM, SE will look at the metrics and go "this is fine".

Healer quality plummeted like never before because many veteran healers have long since quitted WHM or healing altogether while players that don't care for playing healer now play WHM for fast queue times and easy carries. It's not the veteran healers that need to quit to take a stand against the directions healers, escpecially WHM, have been going for some time now. They already did.
And taking their place we have an influx of players who sylphie their way through DF/ PF, an unstable population that simply chose the path of least resistance.

You can heal every DF content with your CNJ kit; worst case is you need to cut back on some stones to save MP for healing and that's it. Would recommend sticking to moderate pulls in ShB leveling dungeons but that's about it. That's as beginner friendly as it gets. Every healer is beginner friendly if someone uses some common sense and sticks to the basics for a bit until they got the ropes of it; there is no need to deprive players of the option to get better but that's exactly what they did with WHM.
Improving on WHM feels horrible because being better means doing less as opposed to doing more - like the other two healers do. This is completely backwards. You literally get rewarded for ignoring most of your already barebone toolkit. And on top of that you have forced clipping and conflicting skill designs that make absolutely no sense - like PI being an oGCD that buffs one of your very few instants.

"Don't heal there, I got this. Just Glare" is communication between co heals in a nutshell.
What good reason is there to have a healer like that?

[Almagnus1]

I really think the way forward with WHM (or any healer really) is to fully embracing being green DPS and then give the healers a spell rotation that does both DPS and HPS so they are always doing baseline healing. Yes, that's going to cause a bunch of overhealing, but at the same time, it's going to help break up the monotony of the "just glare" style of play that WHM has been pushed into over the expansions.

Either that or SE needs to crank up the difficulty with the instances to the point where the healers actually have to heal most of the time rather than interleaving a heal or two between strings of DPS skills - but I don't see that happening.

In any case, I'd rather WHM play well than have it's kit be a bit disjointed as it is currently.