White-mage is doomed - and why

[Deceptus]

You had me until this part.
Why can't WHM have something unique for itself?

Because you can't have mitigation that every healer doesn't have access to or they'd be mandatory in prog.

[Silver-Strider]

Because you can't have mitigation that every healer doesn't have access to or they'd be mandatory in prog.

Ok, so where's WHM's AoE shielding ability?

AST has Neutral Sect and SCH/SGE have on demand shields so where's WHMs?

[Mortex]

Ok, so where's WHM's AoE shielding ability?

AST has Neutral Sect and SCH/SGE have on demand shields so where's WHMs?

I mean you could make protect something like gives you a party wide 500 potency shield and as long as you have this shield dmg you take is reduced by 10%. Makes it not super busted but you can use it for all one shot aoe situations.

[Shurrikhan]

Because you can't have mitigation that every healer doesn't have access to or they'd be mandatory in prog.

...That's literally every shield healer.

It's what makes them... shield healers -- having mitigation not available to every healer (those that are not... shield healers).

[Sebazy]

...That's literally every shield healer.

It's what makes them... shield healers -- having mitigation not available to every healer (those that are not... shield healers).

Correction, that's literally every healer except WHM.

Don't forget that AST has access to spammable barriers for 20 seconds on a 120 second cooldown. They aren't weak shields either. 625 potency single target and 312 potency party with a built in +20% modifier as well.

WHM has no answer to this whatsoever, and despite this, benison is arguably weaker overall vs Celestial Intersection.

Is it time for me to start repeating how little effort SE seems to put into designing and play testing healers at a high standard of play?

[Shurrikhan]

...

So we're back to "the only possible solution is homogeneity" or were any and all alternatives that don't require turning all shields and mitigation into Role Actions, despite shield and pure healers being separately classified in matchmaking, just coincidentally absent?

[Sebazy]

So we're back to "the only possible solution is homogeneity" or were any and all alternatives that don't require turning all shields and mitigation into Role Actions, despite shield and pure healers being separately classified in matchmaking, just coincidentally absent?

No? Where did you even pluck that from?

My personal take is that if SE wanted to get serious about the whole barrier vs pure healer thing, Neutral Sect should have been reworked into something else. Instead we got the usual bluster and hot air followed by more underbaked shortsighted changes that don't go far enough.

But yeah, since Neutral Sect is still a thing, I'd argue that WHM should bring something else to the table instead.

The unfortunate reality is that unless you place value on it's more simplistic kit, it doesn't.

[AFuzzyMu11in]

No? Where did you even pluck that from?

My personal take is that if SE wanted to get serious about the whole barrier vs pure healer thing, Neutral Sect should have been reworked into something else. Instead we got the usual bluster and hot air followed by more underbaked shortsighted changes that don't go far enough.

But yeah, since Neutral Sect is still a thing, I'd argue that WHM should bring something else to the table instead.

The unfortunate reality is that unless you place value on it's more simplistic kit, it doesn't.

ast is loosing the shield i thought

[Semirhage]

And that's part 4 of the Eternal WHM Design Debate.

->The other healers deserve more output because they're more complex
-> But that just means WHM sucks compared to the others because it brings nothing other than output
-> That's okay we can come up with something else for WHM to do
-> But it had better not be anything other than output because the other healers are more complex and Deserve It More (TM). Also if it gets anything else that's Bad, because then that thing might actually be Good and in some conceivable way make it mandatory for prog, and being mandatory are SCH and AST's Shared Exclusive Identities.
-> Sooo. WHM gets output. Which should be lower than the others. Because it's less complex. <3 <3

My eyes rolled out of my head again, got to go find them.

[Sebazy]

ast is loosing the shield i thought

You'd think so with what Yoshida's been saying.

I can only assume that the class design team couldn't be bothered at this point.