Endwalker White Mage has Issues

[Semirhage]

Well, that is generally why I started this thread lol. But regarding everything else you brought up, I think I have a reasonable grasp of where you're coming from now, even if I don't agree with everything you said, based on the way you worded it. I would be interested to hear what you think of the mini rework I proposed earlier in the thread. The goal of which was to address the biggest issues whm is facing without adding brand new abilities or fundamentally altering any of the jobs current systems. I would also obviously be interested in any other thoughts people have in regards to it or how they might go about changing the job themselves.

I think those fixes would help with a lot of the unnecessarily frustrating parts of WHM's kit that make WHM the weakest healer in the role, but fixing healer engagement as a whole is a much larger undertaking. If it makes sense, I'd almost rather those changes didn't get implemented, because it'd be easy for Square to just rebalance the math and leave the job still unrewarding and unfun to play, but wash their hands of it because it's "fixed". I'm approaching from a jaded vet healer perspective where I'm sick of the entire design. I get how infuriating it is that a lot of the frankly stupid design decisions Square makes have ridiculous clunk that's pretty trivial to avoid with just some number tweaks, and at the same time I wish they'd put some actual care and consideration into designing healers instead of just removing the "weak" part from "unfun *and* weak".

Though I'm complaining primarily about balance within the role, the reason I'm complaining about it is because I think actually designing the healers to be fun to play will also fix that imbalance as a side-effect. WHM is trapped as worst-in-role because its kit is just so incomplete. It's not a particularly outstanding burst healer, because the other healers do it better. It's not a strong damaging healer, because the other healers either have higher potencies (Sage) or have followed the design direction that actually complements this game's combat system, i.e. moving the healing power into oGCDs, which not only allows you to heal largely for free, but also frees up even more time to deal damage, further widening the gap between the healers.

WHM's core design is just so outdated. The absurd number of oGCDs the other healers bring, the fact that a lot of the other healers' spells and abilities are just straight superior to anything WHM has to offer, the list is just staggering. I'm looking at YOU, Tetra vs Essential Dignity. Why is Aquaveil just straight up worse than Exaltation? How about Zoe + Pneuma vs Temperance (or Plenary) and Cure 3? Wider radius, deals damage, higher potency, heals the tank extra? So much for the "pure burst healer" when Sage is just superior. Heck...Pneuma is a GCD heal that's on a long cooldown and heals for a large amount in an AOE...but is also not a DPS loss. Cool, so glad Sage can just casually accomplish in one ability what WHM spends its entire job gauge farting around with and doesn't even manage -that- much. Why the hell is every single thing in WHM's kit impressive on paper, except then you can just point at an equivalent ability in half the role that's just hilariously better for no reason?

Even if WHM's numbers made it competitive, it brings nothing unique to the table and never has. Not since Heavensward. It doesn't stand out in any way.