Feedback: White Mage (7.05) Needs Some Major Love

[Pyth]

To me I think this is the biggest problem for White Mage (the lack of unique niche for itself). Like, when you put aside ‘healing’, there’s nothing left for it whatsoever.

Like, Astrologian has its cards, Scholar has its utility buffs, Sage has its dps and some utility. But once the healing is done White Mage doesn’t really have anything unique or interesting to it in the way the others do besides ‘big damage after 3 heals’, which is already contingent upon you having to heal those 3 different times lol

Exactly! I love WHM and I love the idea that you are rewarded for healing on the GCD with a return on damage. But it is really difficult to see a reason outside of "you like WHM" to continue playing it once your static / raid group has seen enrange. I'm not sure what could neccessarily be added to WHM to make it have a unique niche, but it would add a lot more longevity to the job if it did have something unique it could bring. IDK if anyone here plays Honkai Star Rail, but a friend of mine suggested a buffing ability similar to Robin. Where a flat instance of damage is inflicted after a target does damage. It's definitely interesting but I'm not sure how that would work with 14's current systems.

[Tunda]

WHM should be hard casting healer who can heal party

imagine BLM but for healers

SHB was the best WHM iteration because how they double down on DPS and hard casting

still ShB WHM is the best healer I ever played

if they add each expansion 50% dps and 50% healing the job will be almost perfect, but no they turn my boy to potion job

[Pyth]

WHM should be hard casting healer who can heal party

imagine BLM but for healers

SHB was the best WHM iteration because how they double down on DPS and hard casting

still ShB WHM is the best healer I ever played

if they add each expansion 50% dps and 50% healing the job will be almost perfect, but no they turn my boy to potion job

I would certainly not complain about having more DPS options as a WHM player. Heal big and Hit Hard is the motto WHM should stick with!

[Sarixis]

It's always neat to see someone else's perspective on how to make a job feel better to play as a game dev nerd. I personally don't agree with leaning further into the pure healer dichotomy as it's a paradigm that should be destroyed because it forces a meta on the player base and if they want to introduce a 5th healer, are they gonna accept the imbalance of options in their paradigm?

My personal biggest frustration with XIV's iteration of WHM is that it's the most vapid and creatively sterile interpretation of the job in a mechanical sense (not visually), across the entire series. I even made a video like 2.5 years back about improving the job's baseline design (I don't recommend watching it, I don't even agree with quite a few choices in it now) and a little history video on the job from games 1-10 that shows how XIV uses NOTHING truly unique about WHM. Granted, my conspiracy theory is that they keep WHM in such a painfully binary state now because it has such a bloated playerbase due to the game funneling newbies into it from level 1 and they want other healers to be played more.

I was also talking to my partner because we plan to do hobby game dev together in the future and are inspired by the successes and (growing) failures of XIV's job design for a humble little action RPG we want to make in the far future. And it led to a discussion on tank and healer design and thinking in terms of "how do you make wanting to take / heal damage engaging?" Granted what we want to do is a significant deviation from the very linear nature of XIV's combat, but I think it's an important question the devs should be seriously considering instead of blindly designing systems around RPG obligations.

[Pyth]

It's always neat to see someone else's perspective on how to make a job feel better to play as a game dev nerd. I personally don't agree with leaning further into the pure healer dichotomy as it's a paradigm that should be destroyed because it forces a meta on the player base and if they want to introduce a 5th healer, are they gonna accept the imbalance of options in their paradigm?

My personal biggest frustration with XIV's iteration of WHM is that it's the most vapid and creatively sterile interpretation of the job in a mechanically (not visually), across the entire series. I even made a video like 2.5 years back about improving the job's baseline design (I don't recommend watching it, I don't even agree with quite a few choices in it now) and a little history video on the job from games 1-10 that shows how XIV uses NOTHING truly unique about WHM. Granted, my conspiracy theory is that they keep WHM in such a painfully binary state now because it has such a bloated playerbase due to the game funneling newbies into it from level 1 and they want other healers to be played more.

I was also talking to my partner because we plan to do hobby game dev together in the future and are inspired by the successes and (growing) failures of XIV's job design for a humble little action RPG we want to make in the far future. And it led to a discussion on tank and healer design and thinking in terms of "how do you make wanting to take / heal damage engaging?" Granted what we want to do is a significant deviation from the very linear nature of XIV's combat, but I think it's an important question the devs should be seriously considering instead of blindly designing systems around RPG obligations.

Yeah, I love seeing what people have to say about how WHM has been designed. I do think you bring up a really good point that as soon as another healer needs to be added, the pure vs shield healer dichotomy just collapses. It does feel that Square Enix is encouraging more all healers to have access to more mits and larger heals across the board. So perhaps they're already planning on addressing the issue in 8.0? Either way, we need some love shown our way

[Sarixis]

Yeah, I love seeing what people have to say about how WHM has been designed. I do think you bring up a really good point that as soon as another healer needs to be added, the pure vs shield healer dichotomy just collapses. It does feel that Square Enix is encouraging more all healers to have access to more mits and larger heals across the board. So perhaps they're already planning on addressing the issue in 8.0? Either way, we need some love shown our way

Here's to hoping things get better, but given they just removed the variance on Viper, a job that came out this expansion, I'm not particularly optimistic about escaping this race to the bottom in 8.0. I'd love if I was proven wrong, and while the overall combat in Dawntrail is a plus, job design hasn't shown signs of improving. Maybe I'm still salty at how not even Black Mage is safe and got massacred. At least I have a creative outlet in my own game project so I don't feel shackled to the blunders of XIV. The fundamental concepts for how a healer would work are something I'm happy with in a very KISS (Keep It Simple Silly) design method so far.

[Tigore]

The suggestion to expand on SCH Protraction effect sounds like a great idea for WHM. It allows the WHM to use more big and pure heals while granting a higher max HP pool to help the players survive burst hits better. Probably the main concern this might have is it could make DRKs a lot more sturdy with their TBN shields scaling from 25% of their max HP. Although that is another talking point since the DRK tanks probably need some reworks to their mechs anyways.

A few more damage abilities would be nice. It would require consolidating some spells together. Cure 1 with Cure 2 would be a simple one. Medica with Cure 3 maybe if they altered Cure 3 to be more better with casuals? I discussed with another savage healer a while ago and it came down to either changing the range to be 10 yalm on targeting with a 20 yalm radius or maybe cut the mana cost in half if the Medica 2 / 3 HoT is present on you. As for the person I was discussing with, they actually went the full mile with some suggestions too. This looks like a thread they made and it has the elemental ideas I remember us talking about. The suggestions sound like it is asking for a lot of buttons, but we need to remember that one spell slot can cram multiple upgraded spell versions kind of like what they did with a lot of the Dawntrail spell upgrades.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...93#post6463293

[Pyth]

Here's to hoping things get better, but given they just removed the variance on Viper, a job that came out this expansion, I'm not particularly optimistic about escaping this race to the bottom in 8.0. I'd love if I was proven wrong, and while the overall combat in Dawntrail is a plus, job design hasn't shown signs of improving. Maybe I'm still salty at how not even Black Mage is safe and got massacred. At least I have a creative outlet in my own game project so I don't feel shackled to the blunders of XIV. The fundamental concepts for how a healer would work are something I'm happy with in a very KISS (Keep It Simple Silly) design method so far.

Yeah, it's true... their words don't necessarily seem to be aligning with their current actions. I have a small inkling of hope that we might see something more on an 7.X patch since a friend has told me that they tend to do avoid making larger changes on .05 patches. I do think your skepticism is warranted, especially when looking Black Mage and the new Viper changes. :cry: But sounds like your game is a really cool forum for you to flex your creative muscles! Do feel free to share any cool ideas you happen to cook whiile working on it!

[Pyth]

The suggestion to expand on SCH Protraction effect sounds like a great idea for WHM. It allows the WHM to use more big and pure heals while granting a higher max HP pool to help the players survive burst hits better. Probably the main concern this might have is it could make DRKs a lot more sturdy with their TBN shields scaling from 25% of their max HP. Although that is another talking point since the DRK tanks probably need some reworks to their mechs anyways.

A few more damage abilities would be nice. It would require consolidating some spells together. Cure 1 with Cure 2 would be a simple one. Medica with Cure 3 maybe if they altered Cure 3 to be more better with casuals? I discussed with another savage healer a while ago and it came down to either changing the range to be 10 yalm on targeting with a 20 yalm radius or maybe cut the mana cost in half if the Medica 2 / 3 HoT is present on you. As for the person I was discussing with, they actually went the full mile with some suggestions too. This looks like a thread they made and it has the elemental ideas I remember us talking about. The suggestions sound like it is asking for a lot of buttons, but we need to remember that one spell slot can cram multiple upgraded spell versions kind of like what they did with a lot of the Dawntrail spell upgrades.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...93#post6463293

An earlier poster mentioned that Proctraction style effects had some weird interactions with existing systems, but if the devs can figure it out, it'd be such a cool additon! And thank you for sharing the other post! It looks like this other healer was cooking up some hot new ideas! I'll give it a read through and thank you again for sharing! You won't find me complaining about more dps buttons to press for WHM!

[Ramiee]

I think WHM could have more heal give damage mechanics like blood lily.
The regular heals can give a chance to proc sacred sight for example, including ability heals make it around a 25% chance to proc but have a lot heals have that chance.
I think WHM should also have one extra damaging spell that has a cast time and like a 40 second CD.

Besides that yeah replacing the shields with damage reduction is fine, only reason its okay on Astro is because everyone just wants old astro back and this is cope. The lily being a stance could maybe work but you could also just make the lily a strong aoe heal and normal heal on one button like cure 3 or something.
Also yeah the dash needs to be 30 seconds, it's absurd that it's not when PCT has one at 20 seconds with a free sprint too