AST (and DRG) had their improvements pushed to 7.0 PLD are getting theirs in 6.3

[ty_taurus]

To be honest, I'm personally not sure on the instants. I feel like WHM should become the counterpart of BLM. Being generally hard hitting in what they do, but with the most casting involved of all healers. Make them a turret healer, having less weaving involved than other healers in both their damaging and healing and in turn shift their complexity and mastery towards mastering movement and uptime, with tools like present of mind being more widely available and more importantly thin veil being more readily available for casuals who can use them as their movement tools while more experienced players can move towards utilizing them as optimization tools.

You mean that take on Water/Banish? I mean ultimately it would need to go through prototyping, but I could also see Water being a way to get MP back if MP became a more consistent resource.

[T-Owl]

You mean that take on Water/Banish? I mean ultimately it would need to go through prototyping, but I could also see Water being a way to get MP back if MP became a more consistent resource.

Either MP or a gauge ressource which is used for the chunky and more potent stone/glare part of the rotation (I would prefer stone as the generic spell though, but I also could see something where you use glare and inbetween have some chunky earthquake like spell where Black Mage would have despair or where paradox would usually be). What I could see would be water/banish being maybe 1,5 sec cast and the stronger of the two a full 2,5 spell, so that the downtime period of your rotation is also where you would prefer to use your ogcds while during the stronger high damaging one, you would be pushed more towards lilys or something equivalent, you get me?

But generally, I would like White Mage having the least level of mobility and weaving involved in their rotation and their challenge rising from how to deal with movement. I think White Mage in general just should feel beefy. For beginners, you have beefy heals and dps spells that could be engaging and feed a power fantasy and the added complexities come into play when you play on higher level. After all, its similar with Black Mage. It has decent movement tools which you can hold onto when you aren't at the level of optimization yet and which can carry you in casual content around the issue of having to hold your casts for too long and it is easy enough to do decently well for casual content, but it has sooo much you can optimize. Let White Mage be that, something that is easy to get into, both in terms of doing chunky damage in an engaging fashion and chunky healing without having to worry too much about uptime and weaving but that can be hard to truly master on the highest level of play.

[ty_taurus]

Either MP or a gauge ressource which is used for the chunky and more potent stone/glare part of the rotation (I would prefer stone as the generic spell though, but I also could see something where you use glare and inbetween have some chunky earthquake like spell where Black Mage would have despair or where paradox would usually be). What I could see would be water/banish being maybe 1,5 sec cast and the stronger of the two a full 2,5 spell, so that the downtime period of your rotation is also where you would prefer to use your ogcds while during the stronger high damaging one, you would be pushed more towards lilys or something equivalent, you get me?

But generally, I would like White Mage having the least level of mobility and weaving involved in their rotation and their challenge rising from how to deal with movement. I think White Mage in general just should feel beefy. For beginners, you have beefy heals and dps spells that could be engaging and feed a power fantasy and the added complexities come into play when you play on higher level. After all, its similar with Black Mage. It has decent movement tools which you can hold onto when you aren't at the level of optimization yet and which can carry you in casual content around the issue of having to hold your casts for too long and it is easy enough to do decently well for casual content, but it has sooo much you can optimize. Let White Mage be that, something that is easy to get into, both in terms of doing chunky damage in an engaging fashion and chunky healing without having to worry too much about uptime and weaving but that can be hard to truly master on the highest level of play.

I was actually thinking that maybe Glare, Dia, and Banish if it were introduced, could one day be upgraded into Quake, Tornado, and Flood, where it's a combination of elemental and holy traits, almost like it came from the First. Like for Quake, the rock slabs that burst from the ground are white with gold cracks.

[Rilifane]

WHM summary

I really like most of these ideas.
I've already said it a few times but I would like WHM to become the healer with fairly low APM and powerful GCDs as an identity; it's supposed to be the powerhouse and having straightforward but strong and impactful spells would mirror that. I also want to get the nature magic aspect back that we largely lost with ShB. The only thing I don't want for WHM is getting sacrificed as the mandatory baby healer when you can create a skill ceiling that is incredibly lenient to the point that not using your toolkit properly may be as little as a 2% dps loss.
And I think this kind of rework would give a skill ceiling while still being highly forgiving.

If I understood it correctly, the core dps gameplay would look like this:
- keep up Dia and Aero III (assuming Dia deals slightly more damage than Glare or has another incentive to use in single target)
- keep up Holy III damage buff
- keep Assize on cooldown (2nd charge would be welcome though)
- use Water/ Banish for mobility or better weaving windows (I'd like to see something that discourages overcapping though, like a small MP restore)
- spam Glare and dump Lilies on whatever is currently most useful to avoid overcapping

And for burst:
- ready a Blood Lily, use Tempest, ready another one
- use Arcane Ward
- use Misery
- use Tempest Ready
- use one Lily for whatever for double charge
- Glare spam, use 2nd Misery during pot/ 30s raid buffs

Something I'd like to see added is Regen as a Lily spell which can also give the target a 2nd buff that lasts longer and increases the healing to the target from the next WHM spell as you mentioned. I think 30s could work well. That way you have a good Lily dump skill when no burst healing is needed (Regen is far more useful there) which also preps a stronger heal for later.

The only thing I personally don't like is the incentive to use Lilies during Arcane Ward.
Perhaps it can be solved to change the effect of Lily heals under Arcane Ward so that they don't nourish the Blood Lily but deal potency equal to latest Glare version to the nearest target. This would make them perfectly dps neutral without encouraging using Lilies to get more Blood Lilies over the course of the fight or discouraging healing because it would be a dps loss while also making it possible to churn out back to back heals during burst without the risk of overcapping Misery.

I'd personally like to see Seraph Strike added but I suppose Water/ Banish and Holy III serve the same purpose but on seperate buttons.

I second Owl: make WHM beefy.

[ty_taurus]

I really like most of these ideas.
I've already said it a few times but I would like WHM to become the healer with fairly low APM and powerful GCDs as an identity; it's supposed to be the powerhouse and having straightforward but strong and impactful spells would mirror that. I also want to get the nature magic aspect back that we largely lost with ShB. The only thing I don't want for WHM is getting sacrificed as the mandatory baby healer when you can create a skill ceiling that is incredibly lenient to the point that not using your toolkit properly may be as little as a 2% dps loss.
And I think this kind of rework would give a skill ceiling while still being highly forgiving.

If I understood it correctly, the core dps gameplay would look like this:
- keep up Dia and Aero III (assuming Dia deals slightly more damage than Glare or has another incentive to use in single target)
- keep up Holy III damage buff
- keep Assize on cooldown (2nd charge would be welcome though)
- use Water/ Banish for mobility or better weaving windows (I'd like to see something that discourages overcapping though, like a small MP restore)
- spam Glare and dump Lilies on whatever is currently most useful to avoid overcapping

And for burst:
- ready a Blood Lily, use Tempest, ready another one
- use Arcane Ward
- use Misery
- use Tempest Ready
- use one Lily for whatever for double charge
- Glare spam, use 2nd Misery during pot/ 30s raid buffs

Something I'd like to see added is Regen as a Lily spell which can also give the target a 2nd buff that lasts longer and increases the healing to the target from the next WHM spell as you mentioned. I think 30s could work well. That way you have a good Lily dump skill when no burst healing is needed (Regen is far more useful there) which also preps a stronger heal for later.

The only thing I personally don't like is the incentive to use Lilies during Arcane Ward.
Perhaps it can be solved to change the effect of Lily heals under Arcane Ward so that they don't nourish the Blood Lily but deal potency equal to latest Glare version to the nearest target. This would make them perfectly dps neutral without encouraging using Lilies to get more Blood Lilies over the course of the fight or discouraging healing because it would be a dps loss while also making it possible to churn out back to back heals during burst without the risk of overcapping Misery.

I'd personally like to see Seraph Strike added but I suppose Water/ Banish and Holy III serve the same purpose but on seperate buttons.

I didn't want to go into a full theorycraft, but one idea for a lily spell I had was removing Regen and Medica II and replacing them with Afflatus Propagation--a self buff that causes your next GCD heal to apply a 200 potency Regen on single target heals and a 100 potency Regen on AoE heals, in addition to the heal's existing effect. It marginally cuts down on buttons since we're adding a bunch, but also creates a unique combo type of system for WHM's healing. And yeah, I'd add another charge to Assize as well.

I get your point on using lilies during Arcane Ward. Since I mentioned adding in the buff that basically boosts your next heal on that target, it does give you a way to spend those lilies without it being overhealing, but it does leave you dry of lilies after, though since you can also generate more lilies as needed, you could replenish 1 or 2 the ward ends. It's got pros and cons. I love the concept since I really enjoy playing as Aerith in FF7 and I think visually it would be such a satisfying tool, but figuring out how to make it work in a way that doesn't discourage healing is challenging. With more time, I'd experiment with a lot of different ideas in a prototyping environment if I could, but I think it's doable.

I think we're ultimately fine without Seraph Strike. I also find it a little odd that they kept the name Seraph Strike when SCH has Summon Seraph. Not to mention WHM got specifically Lilies as opposed to any other flower in the world when SCH's faerie is named Lily. Just a little odd that WHM somehow seems to step on SCH's toes on occasion in terms of naming conventions.

[T-Owl]

I was actually thinking that maybe Glare, Dia, and Banish if it were introduced, could one day be upgraded into Quake, Tornado, and Flood, where it's a combination of elemental and holy traits, almost like it came from the First. Like for Quake, the rock slabs that burst from the ground are white with gold cracks.

I personally like the idea that one would be the generic nuke spam while the other would be the despair and xenoglossy equivalent. Like, either you spam holy-themed non-elemental spells and your elemental ones are your massive hitters or the other way around. But yeah, I think we both agree on White Mage ideally mixing in holy with elemental attacks. I generally feel like white mage should have some nature and elemental focussed elements, as it ties the job more neatly to Aerith, who is most likely the most iconic White Mage equivalent of the Franchise. I find tempest a bit confusing, but I could see it maybe as a single target version for afflatus misery and pushing that one to being part of the AOE rotation? Or the other way around. I would also kinda like lilys to be a dps gain. Like I said, I would see white mage as much slower and much gcd reliant, so I think they should gain dps opportunities from their heals as other healers could very well work staying more ogcd focussed. Like, maybe tie a system similar to umbral hearts to lilys? You lose a cast, but in return you can prolong your stone/glare phase that would have stronger potencies.

[Renathras]

Quote

I think I agree with you pretty much. One idea I've thought would be cool is if WHM gained a Trait where every GCD heal they have now generates a Blood Lily stack. For reference, that's Cure 1, Cure 2, Cure 3, Medica, Medica 2, Regen, Afflatus Solace, and Afflatus Rapture. This way, WHM's identity would really be "The GCD healer", but every three heals is capped off by a Misery cast. There's no balance issue here since, in practice, this is already how WHM plays in terms of damage output, you're just using Glares instead of your GCD toolkit (which is just kinda...there...other than Solace/Rapture, which ARE commonly used) and oGCDs for healing. If the GCD heals generated Blood Lily stacks the same way Rapture/Solace did, then casting them wouldn't be detrimental since it would come out damage neutral. IF it is desired for some reason that they not quite be (e.g. like how 6.0 Misery was a DPS loss over Glarespam, though MOSTLY refunded DPS or how Ruin 2 is a DPS loss over Broil, but not as much as casting nothing or an Adlo/Succor/Physic), then we could replace the Lily system with something that stacks with more increments (for example, a gauge that stacks to 6 with Solace/Rapture building 2 but GCD heals building 1 meaning they're HALF a lost CD, or alternatively could use a 0-100 gauge like WAR or SCH where Solace/Rapture build 20 and other GCD heals build 10 and it costs 50 to cast a Misery, whatever achieves the basic result), so it's possible to make it work.

The Lily system has already created something where WHM can be a GCD healer and be damage neutral, so flexing on that system to achieve its playstyle just...makes sense.

Quote

In brief:

On people being bad: Yes, it's POSSIBLE players were "just bad", but that's irrelevant. Because that's not the "appeal to authority" going on here. The appeal is "How did people play back then", with the assumption (from you guys) everyone played as high temp stance dancing DPS hybrids. The thinking (from you guys) goes that if that's true, that people like me have NEVER BEEN welcome as Healers in FFXIV, and our preferred playstyle has NEVER EXISTED in FFXIV, so we have no leg to stand on in arguing it should exist in the game today or going forward. That's the general logic behind the entire discussion. But what is the answer to that question? Well the answer is "Both ways - WHMs WERE played as essentially pure healers until around 2.4 to 3.0 while SCHs WERE played as Green DPS hybrids". The answer is BOTH were true and BOTH were accommodated by FFXIV. It doesn't matter if you want to say people were "bad". What matters is did the game allow it, did the community generally practice it, and the answer to both is "Yes...for WHM". Which is honestly a HALF-win for you guys, because the answer was "Hybrid fast paced stance dancing...for SCH". You just don't want to accept a HALF-win because that would mean there's precedent for the very thing I'm arguing, which you don't want there to be precedent for because that severely weakens your position.

On majorities: You can see in this very thread a few - not many, but a few - other people expressing perspectives similar to my own. Even on these near-echo-chamber forums (which most discussion forums are at this point), where you have 20 (here) to 1,000 or so (Reddit) common and highly prolific posters, not even in either of these FORUMS is your position absolute. And these are places people go when they're disgruntled with a game played by over 3,000,000 people - a recipe for an echo chamber with strong selection bias. Who speaks for the majority? Probably NO ONE here. The difference is, despite you thinking so, I'm not claiming I am; you are claiming you are. I only claim that there are a significant amount of people like me out there. What you're trying is an appeal to consensus fallacy, and it's even worse since you're appealing to an echo chamber that represents a VERY small portion of the community as a whole. I could even point you to some very high profile healer mains right now that LOVE healing. For one: Cole Evyx.

On pace: Which doesn't change the fact that that is still native FFXIV.

On BLM: Yes, let's have WHM's needing to cast emergency heals...and them be 3.5 second casts that they get interrupted because they had to move out of their Ley Lines and - oops, the party's dead now. That sounds like a terrible idea. Not only that, WHM isn't built that way. Like, at all. It's possible TO build a healer like that, but probably not in FFXIV because of how healing needs to be relatively reliable and a BLM playstyle on a healer wouldn't work. You might get something akin to old SMN (on SGE), but that's the closest you'd probably get. Also, have you ever considered that this forum is an echo chamber and does not represent the whole community? Moreover, have you ever realized that, at most (judging by like counter), only about 5-10 people ACTUALLY find my ideas "horrible"? And good god, how is your position so...backwards? I'm not asking YOU to "bend over backwards" to accommodate ME.

I've said this before, so I'll say it again by itself to make it clear:

The starting point to this discussion is NOT you have full leave to change all 4 healers and I'm trying to convince you not to change one. The starting point to this discussion IS that you have NO leave to change ANY healer, and I've offered for the sake of argument we change 3 and you're insisting that we change all 4. The status quo is EVERYTHING STAYS AS IT IS TODAY and you get 0 healers changed at all.

You think you're arguing from a position of strength when you are arguing from a position of weakness - the default if there's no agreement (not that the Devs are reading this or care, but if we pretend they are) is to stick with the current situation. In fact, YOU should be making the case TO CHANGE the healers, and EACH ONE one by one. The onus is on YOU not on ME to prove your case AND for you to present an ironclad argument that all four MUST be changed and not one may be exempted. Something you aren't doing since you're somehow under the faulty assumption that your position is the default and _I'm_ the one asking _you_ for a favor. The reality is the opposite. _My_ position is the baseline and _you_ are the one asking for an imposition.

...an imposition I'm even willing to grant you in 3 out of 4 cases. You're like a person asking to stay at a friend's house, the friend says "Sure, and I'll let you use 3 of the 4 bedrooms" and you saying "WHAT AN IMPOSITION! Why should _I_ let _YOU_ have one bedroom to yourself?" The logical response would be "Because it's _MY_ house, and if you don't like it, maybe we shouldn't even let YOU have ONE room!"

And the part that's the most rich of it all?

And your demand basically boils down to demanding that the most iconic healer job of the bunch should be reduced to appealing towards players who don't like healing in FF14,

...so by asking that the most iconic HEALER JOB OF THE BUNCH (your words) be "reduced" to HEALING is somehow "players who don't like healing"? You realize _I'M_ the one arguing FOR the players that like healing and YOU are the one arguing that WHM be made into a BLM DPS clone, right? Like...how are you so consistent at being 180 off of reality? It's honestly rather impressive...

Like, seriously, how you're COMPLETELY backwards wrong so consistently is seriously impressive, and I don't mean that ironically, sarcastically...or even insultingly. I'm honestly impressed. Not in a good way, per se, but like they said in Fable, hero or villain, you make your mark.

Listen, I feel bad on a personal level. It feels like the entire healer forums has been at war with Ren for literally weeks now, and regardless of anyone's stance on the game, I imagine that's frustrating, stressful, and disheartening. I don't want to create enemies, and I don't want someone feeling like ass because of video game debates. So I just wanna say, before anything else, I hope it's not taxing you as a person in real life. I want to try and find some middle ground.

I appreciate this. Can you understand how I see my position as the middle ground?

From my perspective, here are the two "sides" of the discussion:

1) No changes. All 4 healers remain as they are today. Future expansions just add abilities/charges/upgrades but the playstyle remains exactly as it is in terms of the DPS kits.

2) Complete changes. Healers lean even more heavily into the oGCD heals, abandoning GCD heals as much as possible (Lilies aside), and instead become full fledged DPS kits or at least half-DPS kits like Tanks have (note that some Tanks like PLD have about as many DPS buttons in their kit as DPS Jobs...which is probably why PLD has the most hotbar spaces required of any Job right now)

Now look at those two positions.

My position - change 3 of the Healers and leave 1 as it is, and possibly shift encounter design more towards needing sustained healing to make heals actually more needed - IS the middle ground. In fact, by saying change 3 and leave 1, my position, if (1) and (2) were at opposite points on a line, would be 75% of the way to point (2). Contrarily, the position of most of you folks is 100% on (2), which is the extremist (in the sense of being an endpoint) position. Can you not see how my position IS the middle ground? You're asking for a compromise on what is ALREADY a compromise position. Indeed, my position is ON YOUR SIDE of what the actual middle ground would be, which would either be change 2 and leave 2 OR take all 4 but only half-change them. Can you really not see that?

That said, I appreciate your words above. My concern is that forums like this are echo chambers that don't represent the whole community. You DO represent a chunk of it - whether that is small or great, I have no idea, but I'd say you represent at least a third of it (which is a lot, don't mistake my intention in saying so; I'm more thinking of the Savage clear numbers here), but so do I. Can we respect that both of our positions are probably widely held within the community?

So again, consider the 75%/25% argument of changing 3 classes and leaving 1 as it is today. Suppose FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT that your view is representative of 75% of the playerbase - a clear majority - and mine of only 25% (I suspect the opposite is the reality, but let's just suppose for a moment): Then would it not make logical sense to have 3 Healing Jobs follow your paradigm and 1 follow mine? That way, the 1/4th of healer players in the game that agree with me would have 1/4th of the healing Jobs as an option that appeals to them, while the 75% that agree with you would have 3/4ths of the healing Jobs as options that appeal to them. Does that not seem fair?

And if not: HOW not?

I get that some people like the aesthetic of WHM but want your playstyle, but some people like the aesthetic of SCH but want my playstyle. In a community of people, at the end of the day, we collectively have to make compromises so that the most people are happy, or at least content, right? So instead of arguing outright against leaving WHM alone, can you present an argument for WHY we can't leave one healer - and it DOES NOT MATTER WHICH ONE; it could be give SGE the Lily system and get rid of Addersgall/sting and Kardia so that the WHM aesthetic goes to your side, I DO NOT CARE WHICH ONE, only that there is ONE - as it is today for the 25% of the community (which is, in reality, probably actually 50-75% and the majority) that does not like your playstyle?

Can you see how, from my perspective, I'm only asking for a little AND offering a MASSIVE compromise from the base position of (1), and how it seems a bit greedy for you guys to not only demand (2), but to act as if (2) is the default position even though (1) is the default position?

.

That all said, I can see that you posted a lot more, and I genuinely want to read it (I see Aerith, I read on ), but got to run for now. I will come back and give it a read and see what you came up with.

But I want you to at least consider/try to see that I'm ALREADY at the position of "middle ground". You guys are collectively arguing an extreme (endpoint) position while I'm already arguing for the middle ground on YOUR SIDE of middle.

Again, I genuinely DO appreciate you injecting some Humanity into this, and I'm of the same mind. I don't want to make enemies; if that was so, I'd be arguing for position (1) not position (1.75).

[Cygnia]

But this is literally just a "I think there's an interesting idea there...", but I have no idea how to make it work in practice AND I'm not an AST main, so I won't speak for AST players. I'm sure they have way better and more educated - on AST - ideas for improving the Job, and I'd leave it to them.

While I can but speak for myself based on the observations made, the main trouble with Astrologians is that the paradigm it had doesn't really fit into XIV's combat system. What veers into the realm of personal desire is to see Astrologian grow slightly less frantic with the upkeep. Slightly. I don't want to eliminate the speed of the job entirely, but something like reducing the amount of tabbing in conjunction with trimming the fat would do wonders to leave space for more involved card antics.
Ideally I'd love Nocturnal Sect back in a more solid format - for lore and gameplay reasons, and would happily sacrifice a goodly number of extra heals to earn it. However that boat probably has sailed off into the distance, never to return.

Also, hope this mini skirmish ain't wearing on you too much. Kudos on speaking your mind nonetheless; it can be a trifle daunting sometimes to be the one holding an unpopular opinion.*
We don't have to excise opposing viewpoints with extreme prejudice, guys.

*unpopular on these subforums.

[AmiableApkallu]

New WHM Direction Summary

For a different perspective, the inspiration from BLM that I had in mind was the Umbral Ice/Astral Fire mechanic.

You can be an Ice mage. It's safe. It's cozy. But even at a casual level, a simple reading of your tool tips strongly suggests that this is not how you should be playing. The real game is, "How much Fire can I greed?" You can play it on easy mode (go back to Ice while you still have thousands of MP). You can play it on hard mode (drain every last bit of MP and hope you timed it right so that you have a free Ice cast). Either way, it's a risk/reward game with a goal that you can aspire towards.

It doesn't copy to a healer exactly as-is, but I think the spirit could. Spamming heals is safe. It's cozy. But even at a casual level, something about the kit should encourage you to play the game of balancing damage and heals.

Another mechanic I was thinking of for inspiration is DRK's Blackest Night. You can spam it on cooldown, but there's a clear incentive to use it only when it's actually useful. The WHM equivalent might be that you can spam lily heals, but you nourish the blood lily only in proportion to how much of the healing was actually useful. Play smarter, not harder, that sort of thing.

[T-Owl]

Snip

First can you maybe tone down the aggressiveness? Spaming caps is a clearly understood gesture of aggression and trying to assert dominance into an discussion, which is childish and makes people uncomfortable-

And I mean, the fact that people were pretty back during the time because the game was new and player would take some time to start optimizing, especially since back in the day it would take, as far as I understand, specific melds for healers to hit reliably enough to dps in encounters matters quite alot, because we don't live in this day and age anymore. The game evolved, the community evolved and people who were the cutting edge of players during the time of ARR probably would be squashed by a bunch of casuals in 2022. There isn't your compromise because the ultimate issue is, that you expect that in the current landscape this playstyle would be valued as much as those that just contribute more and you expect a class hypothetically designed for the sake of pulling the least effort in and contributing the least compared to others to be as valued as more engaged ones. When I started the game fresh in Heavensward, Healer DPS was already fairly established. And why shouldn't it be, it just means that a healer does contribute to protect and support the party further in times when heals aren't required. It also gives healers a measure for their own performance, as they will organically notice that with increasing confidence and skill, they will be able to contribute even more to the party.

And I feel like you act contrarian for the sake of acting contrarian. I mean, when it comes to my ideas for White Mage, I'm actually meeting you halfway down. I want a more engaged dps rotation for the class, but I also think it would be fine to make them more gcd even heal cast reliant in a way, that their dps either contributes to that or that utilizing these tools is a dps gain. Like for example in the case of hypothetically styling White Mage after Black Mage to make their lily heals creat something akin to umbral hearts that allows them to stay in their high dps phase longer and to give them the tools to mitigate their cast reliance, like giving them additional tools for instant casting which casuals can use for movement situations while more optimized players will use them for performance.

And can you stop the you speaking for the silent majority tactics? It is really one that isn't used by good faith actors ever.