4 Paired Threads: WHM - How do you feel about it?

[ForsakenRoe]

It's 'functional enough to clear content'

If you want me to dig up something I 'like' about it, I 'appreciate' the fact that it is a healer option that has no extra complications surrounding 'how to heal'. It fulfills the paradigm of the 'Holy Priest' style healer, of 'see HP go down, press skill, HP go up again'. This makes it good for more casual players who don't want to mess around with overly technical concepts like 'remember to wait 10s after placing Star to get max effect from it', which not everyone will be into.

What I don't like about it is that every aspect of the class is trying to follow suit. Keeping the class casual-friendly by having it's healing kit be strong, powerful, easy to access while under stressful healing pressures, and rewarding to use, that's fine, and it does that pretty well. But those of us who would like to use what we know about healing well/efficiently, and eke more out of the class, are being told we cannot go that extra mile. This is not a case of 'we cannot push our car beyond the road's speed limit', but one of 'the car manufacturer has purposely throttled the engine's output to 10mph below the speed limit of the road'.

It could be vastly improved in several ways which I've now reposted or linked to on at least 10 different occasions. Tell you what, make it 11.


Also, did you need to waste so much of your daily post allowance on making four individual threads, all of which are likely to just get the same familiar faces responding with 'yeh I play X healer, how do I feel about it? It sucks, rollback to SB', do I have to give my views on every healer in all 4 threads now? With every post I've made here I can probably form a thesis on 'the design failures of an MMO giant's Healer role: How Square Enix absolutely botched it in spectacular fashion'

[Renathras]

Also, did you need to waste so much of your daily post allowance on making four individual threads, all of which are likely to just get the same familiar faces responding with 'yeh I play X healer, how do I feel about it? It sucks, rollback to SB', do I have to give my views on every healer in all 4 threads now? With every post I've made here I can probably form a thesis on 'the design failures of an MMO giant's Healer role: How Square Enix absolutely botched it in spectacular fashion'

Honestly, we tend to get a lot of jumbled discussions where various Healers are being thrown around, and it tends to make for less useful information since it gets jumbled. I thought having a separate one for each Job and the discussions in each being more focused on that Job could be useful. So I don't consider it a waste in this case, even if it was 1/5th of an allowance. If it leads to productive conversation (so far it has - I really enjoyed Nizzi's post in the SGE thread in particular), then I think it might be worth it.

You can reply as much or as little as you want. If you only want to post in one (or none), that's fine. If you want to post in all of them, or engage in discussions in any of them, that's fine, too. No arm twisting either way, I just thought it would be a wholesome or, at least, useful idea.

EDIT:

Ithat the weeb pixie job

I'm not going to comment on this further other than to say...I don't think weeb means what you think weeb means.

"weeb" doesn't mean nerd - which might apply to SCH being bookish, but would also apply to SGE which is basically a stylized Greek doctor with Gundam weapons; "weeb" refers to "weabo", which is a person that is overly fanboyish about Japanese stuff, often Anime and samurais/ninjas/mecha type things, often to the point of obsession, and generally looking down on non-Japanese/Anime stuff even if it's as good or better. SGE's Gundam weapons make it more "weeb" than SCH's books, where SCH is a more general "academic and military officer" archetype.

So not only would "nerd" apply equally to SCH and SGE, "weeb" in particular only applies to one healer Job right now, which is SGE. None of the others have any particularly Anime-inspired tropes associated with them. While WHM (namely the female gear) is styled a lot like Japanese/Shinto shrine maidens, the CNJ base is more like western European druids, and the WHM more like European (Catholic) holy priests and related archetypes. AST would be akin to various mystics, fortune tellers, and Chinese influences like the Zodiac, or the Magi of Christian fame who read signs and seasons in the stars which was how they learned of the birth of Jesus as a great king/historic event.

Perhaps you mean "nerd" or "sissy" (faerie), but "weeb" doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

And it's fine you like SGE. And it's fine others don't. And it's fine different people prize different things, objectively and subjectively. No need to insult.

[IceBlueNinja]

Honestly, we tend to get a lot of jumbled discussions where various Healers are being thrown around, and it tends to make for less useful information since it gets jumbled. I thought having a separate one for each Job and the discussions in each being more focused on that Job could be useful. So I don't consider it a waste in this case, even if it was 1/5th of an allowance. If it leads to productive conversation (so far it has - I really enjoyed Nizzi's post in the SGE thread in particular), then I think it might be worth it.

You can reply as much or as little as you want. If you only want to post in one (or none), that's fine. If you want to post in all of them, or engage in discussions in any of them, that's fine, too. No arm twisting either way, I just thought it would be a wholesome or, at least, useful idea.

I disagree on this one with you for once nizzie and the sch fan club everytime there is a sge tread is the same thing, it gets boring hearing the same repetitive oh sge = copied worst sch with the usual same examples that is just totally barely if ever irrelevant, at the end of the day all the healers are 1 2 mostly and any healer is capable of clearing any high end content even ultimates, even your last post show the common comp is whm/sge and yet those 2 gets so bashed and bullied over ast/sch so apparently the all so mighty overrated sch that is the less played healer is lol. (this is true mostly on my server of aether that is high content heavy) that the weeb pixie job is the less used job

I get people want differences and I do too but honestly how can there be any differences when to healer when it comes to 14 the way they designed their battle system? I only can say then ast/sage should have no shields/regens/mits but make them do what I would say call a burst healer , with heavy dots management or something. Anyways just like the old abuse ast use to get, there is always annoying constant repetitive hate thing on sge like old noct ast, yet hey said haters now even asking for ast to get back its dual stances? People are the reason why healers will never be fix no one ever gets satisfisied.

[Katish]

Same as I feel with all the healers: Pretty neutral to dislike, each varying in different categories.
- All healers can be replaced for a party comp, in all content.
- All healers spam 1 button mostly, followed by a dot every now and again.
- All healers are simple with no healing experience required
+ My own opinion: All healers are casters and lead to further homogenizing.


For whm: It's lack of mitigation for lack of DPS > there are better alternatives (which is a term that shouldn't be used but can in healer's cases.

[Silver-Strider]

WHM's lack of mitigation is so jarring considering that WHM in other titles is loaded with every Elemental Resistance under the sun on top of Shell and Protect.

Hell, if anything the Lily System could be expanded to include at least Protect so that there's some variety to the system instead of just a ST or AoE Heal.

[Shurrikhan]

WHM's lack of mitigation is so jarring considering that WHM in other titles is loaded with every Elemental Resistance under the sun on top of Shell and Protect.

Hell, if anything the Lily System could be expanded to include at least Protect so that there's some variety to the system instead of just a ST or AoE Heal.

As long as it wouldn't always be worth using, and wouldn't thereby largely replace Solace, I'd dig that.

For instance, if it applied 4 Stacks of Protect, each granting 5% mitigation, and lost 1 stack every 5 seconds, etc. then you'd actually want to time that, though it wouldn't be as susceptible as a barrier would be to getting chipped by autos just before the TB.

[Hunky]

I've been playing White Mage since ARR and I gotta admit, I've been loving it more now than ever.

I'm very much a casual player and if I do savage content it's just to fk around and find out lol so please bear with me if I have bad takes.

What I love about White Mage:

-I love the visual aesthetic and fantasy of White Mage. White Mages have the best weapons out of the healers, and their spells look beautiful. I love the insanely sparkly and "magical girl" feel of the spells. I think it's fun. Lily spells are chef's kiss.

I'm extremely happy with the new aesthetics that Shadowbringers introduced. Glare and Dia have beautiful visual effects. And I love that Holy 3 is a gigantic lily.

While I understand it was part of the lore, I was never a fan of Stone. Stone always kinda looked boring if I'm being honest.

-I love the simplicity and intuitiveness of White Mage. There's no tripping over buttons or feelings of "oh sht I knew I forgot something" like when playing Astrologian.

I love all the healing options White Mage has. The kit feels so good and comfortable to play.

Dealing with huge pulls in dungeons feels much better. Still hectic, but less stressful.

Divine Benison, Aquaveil, Assize, Plenary Indulgence, and Tetragrammaton are some of my favorites. I remember when Tetragrammaton was first introduced in Heavensward. Everybody, including myself, was like "omg how did we live without this?" Such an awesome ability.

What could be improved for White Mage:

-The toolkit at level 50 feels eh. Unlock the Lily Gauge before level 50 and that'll help out. Afflatus Rapture should be available at an earlier level too.

-Cure 1 doesn't get used much at higher levels, which ends up making Freecure kinda pointless. Instead of removing Freecure, add a Freecure 2.0 that is the reverse: Cure 2 has a chance of granting a free Cure 1 (or another Cure 2). The original Freecure still has its place in lower level content.

-Bring back an AoE DoT like Aero 3. If there's one thing I do miss, it's Aero 3.

That's pretty much it.

[Niroken]

Hate.
I liked the aesthetic before it became all white glitter and gentle tinkling noises for its abilities. A few were fine. Now it's all tinkles and glitter.

So much this. They need to go back to the elements because that provided a variety of spell effects. It would be like BLM getting their spells replaced with black sparkle orbs. What has happened to WHM is what the WoL fought to stop in Shadowbringers.

[Katish]

-Bring back an AoE DoT like Aero 3. If there's one thing I do miss, it's Aero 3.

That's pretty much it.

It needs more love than that I'd argue, much more. The healers are replaceable as damage is king, so they would need to be re-imagined to fit that direction, the direction they signed off on. [With a good team, healers are replaceable] [So healers need to have damage to make them not replaceable or at least not efficient to do so.]
As for the pure healer concept, the value of a pure healer is questionable if and when that pure healer never uses their high pure heals. And whm doubles down on that by not bringing any personal shield mitigation... as shields at least have some intrinsic value to survive. (Albeit still efficient to replace a healer all together).

Let us contrast WHM vs SGE, as SGE is WHM's shield healer equivalent:
WHM is no longer the self dps healer, as SGE does that much better...and when taking damage and crit variance into the picture whm shows that bad quality moreso because for a white mage to make up the damage that a SGE does, they have to fit two afflatus miseries into the two min window and have them both direct crit (and that's waiting for that window and holding onto those lillies which risks the parties health which is doable but risky), where a SGE can basically go ham from the start without playing risky and out damage the whm most of the time. They can even out-heal the whm ironically where it is needed, as they carry a ton of regens, pneuma, and ixochole. So the question then becomes what white mages bring in particular to the table. Personal answer: I have no idea.

So what is the solution?
I'd say allow for whm to be best self dps healer as shields still carry some form of value...but raise every healers' dps and dps oriented skills [and / or support skills] so that they are not replaceable in the party. Personally would rather them split the healers in a new direction away from pure vs shield (maybe personal damage vs support healers extending the skills in the healer trees to make that obvious). I thought that was the direction they would be heading in when they added Astrologian and Chain Stratagem, boy was I wrong lel.

[ForsakenRoe]

As long as it wouldn't always be worth using, and wouldn't thereby largely replace Solace, I'd dig that.

For instance, if it applied 4 Stacks of Protect, each granting 5% mitigation, and lost 1 stack every 5 seconds, etc. then you'd actually want to time that, though it wouldn't be as susceptible as a barrier would be to getting chipped by autos just before the TB.

I'm just asking for a shield applying Lily spender, with potencies purposely lower than the 'shield healer' equivalents so that WHM doesn't suddenly steal their jobs (due to lilies being damage neutral). Something like, since Succor is 320 shield, having Lily spender AOE shield tool be 200-250. Or alternatively, make it like 100 but it can stack with SCH/SGE shields. Either way, having a non-pure-heal option to spend Lilies on would help with the Misery prep issue, where we purposely overheal for the sake of raidbuffs, with this, we can still reap the effect of the Lily being spent for up to 30s after the moment it's spent, but the conversion ratio is purposely terrible because WHM is not a 'shield healer'