White Mage Flavor in 6.0

[Allegor]

WHM is known as the tutorial/starter healer but imo no job past ~50 should feel babyproof easy. AST and SCH have, by comparison, tons of ogcd and buff timers to watch out for, whereas WHM is glare, glare, glare, glare, glare, glare, glare, ohh rapture/dia, assize, glare, glare, glare, glare...and aoe is not much better, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy....

[elioaiko]

In a sense, the simplicity of WHM when compared to SCH or AST is part of it's charm, and while that's a good skill to learn (especially for the DPSers), I'm wondering if it's intentionally not part of the WHM job design as WHM is a pretty simplistic job.

No, just no. WHM is so barebones that it's the job I play if I'm feeling lazy. It's simplicity is absolutely why healers are so horribly overlooked. Why why why, does both WHM and now SCH clip so much? Clipping feels so horrible as opposed to naturally being able to weave in your oGCDs ala AST. Moving is incredibly painful and this obsession with WHM being a turret healer is awful. You lose so much uptime by simply needing to use your kit. The weave windows are awkward and few in both. At least SCH has Ruin 2 (problematic but at least it's there). Yes there are Lillies, but for one, they are on a timer and are a dps loss overall. It's better than nothing yes, but it doesn't make WHM any less awkward to use.

Conjurer is your beginner job, WHM should not have to suffer from being the "simple" job for the sake of it. It lacks so much, utlity, gameplay variety, and having a retcon of sorts on its nature to holy magic. WHM should not be as barebones as it is now, it deserves better gameplay that doesn't encourage having no brain cells to play.

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.

But knowing SE they will hold onto this notion that WHM is in a great place and probably add nothing meaningful to WHM come Endwalker.

[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".

[Semirhage]

Already tapped out on maining WHM. Unfortunately it has the distinction of being both the only level 1 healer and the only job with brand recognition. WHM is going to remain the most played healer no matter how bad its kit gets.

[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.

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

This thread turned from White Mage's kit's theme to WHM clipping cooldowns real fast.

Which, again (because I repeat this every time White Mage clipping is brought up) would be solved by reducing the cast time of Glare to 1.5 seconds, you could even reduce Medica and Medica 2's cast time to 2 seconds to be like Astrologian's Helios and Aspected Helios, if Medica and Medica 2's cast times are in fact both 2.5 seconds. White Mage has just about as many cooldowns to weave as Astro does so there is no reason to continue punishing White Mage with cast times that can be carbon dated from ARR. Especially since White Mage doesn't have an instant cast spell like Ruin 2, which wouldn't even need to exist if Glare's cast time was reduced.

Makes me feel indignant that the balance team thought reducing Malefic to 1.5 seconds but not doing the same for White Mage's Glare was a good idea.

[Grimoire-M]

snip

Or, to bring it back to topic, we could use different mechanics to solidify White Mage's theme as distinct from Astrologian's, while -also- attempting to solve this problem.

Here, I'll cut out the part of my rework suggestions from three pages ago that offer multiple potential solutions to movement specifically and repost it here just to show some examples:

1. New Spell - Afflatus Antimony: Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 100. Lily Cost: 1. Instant Cast. Replaces Fluid Aura.
   
2. Reworked Spell - Fluid Aura: Deals water damage with a potency of 50. Instant Cast. Lily Cost: 1.
   
3. Returning Trait - Secret of the Lily II: Increases your maximum Lily Gauge to 4, Blood Lily Gauge to 4, reduces the number of Afflatus spells needed to put the Blood Lily into full bloom to 2, and increases the potency of Afflatus Misery to 1000.
   
4. Reworked Spell - Cure: Restores Target’s HP. Cure Potency: 450.
   Additional Effect: Cleric Stance.
   Cleric Stance Effect: Increases the potency of the next Stone, Glare, or Holy you cast by 50% while reducing its cast time by 2.5s. Duration: 15s.
   Cast Time: 1.5s.
5. Returning Spell - Aero III: Deals wind damage with a potency of 90 to target and nearby enemies.
   Additional Effect: Wind Damage over Time. Potency: 80. Duration: 9s (Note: Assumes a Glare II potency of 330).
   Instant Cast. Radius: 10y.
6. New Spell - Animus Attendance: Applies a blessing to self or ally, which heals them the next time they suffer damage. Cure Potency: 700. Duration: 20s.
   Additional Effect: Enhances target's next offensive spell, autoattack, weaponskill, or ability, causing it to deal additional unaspected damage with a potency of 330 to their primary target, and 40% less to nearby enemies.
   Cast Time: Instant. Recast: 20s. Charges: 2. Shares a recast timer with Animus Sanctuary. Range: 30y Radius: 0y (10y for Effect)
7. New Spell - Animus Sanctuary: Deals Unaspected Damage with a potency of 330 to the first target, and 40% less to nearby enemies.
   Additional Effect: Applies a blessing to all party members near target, healing them the next time they suffer damage or upon effect duration expiration. Cure Potency: 400. Duration: 20s.
   Cast Time: Instant. Recast: 20s. Charges: 2. Shares a recast timer with Animus Attendance.
8. Returning Ability - Divine Seal: Increases the potency of the next healing spell cast by 30%. Duration: 15s
   Additional Effect: Cleric Stance. Duration: 15s.
   Cooldown: 60s. Maximum Charges: 2.
9. New Ability - Aetherpath: Move quickly to the specified location. Cannot be executed while bound. Cooldown: 90s.

Apart from Aetherpath (which is just Shukuchi), each also has other uses in White Mage's kit. Animus Skills are pre-castable Excog-like heals that are DPS neutral and share a cooldown. Aero III is an AoE DoT that can be used for weaving in single target situations. Cure I is retooled as a 'get out of jail' heal that's less efficient than straight DPS but is more efficient in specific circumstances involving other heals. Divine Seal is an oGCD that is essentially swiftcast for your next filler DPS spell while boosting a healing spell. Then Fluid Aura and Afflatus Antimony are the defacto DPS options for Lilies, with Secret of the Lily II shifting the tax from Misery to Antimony. There's other things I add that mostly have to deal with bringing back the Confession mechanic and tuning its interactions up to 11 but that's a different mess compared to the above.