Feedback: White Mage (7.05) Needs Some Major Love

[Pyth]

I can't believe I totally forgot to put this in the greater doc and conversation, but DO SOMETHING WITH THE FREECURE TRAIT. GET RID OF IT REPLACE IT. ANYTHING

[Ramiee]

Cure 1 now procs a free medica 3 which is also instant cast

[Shurrikhan]

I can't believe I totally forgot to put this in the greater doc and conversation, but DO SOMETHING WITH THE FREECURE TRAIT. GET RID OF IT REPLACE IT. ANYTHING

I mean, it's typically excessive, but any problem with Freecure is almost purely to do with the game's (lack of) learning support, rather than the (usually useless) perk itself.

It still increases the mana-efficiency of Cure I greatly, which can actually be useful after having just been raised with 50s left until your next Lucid Dreaming.

[Silver-Strider]

I mean, it's typically excessive, but any problem with Freecure is almost purely to do with the game's (lack of) learning support, rather than the (usually useless) perk itself.

It still increases the mana-efficiency of Cure I greatly, which can actually be useful after having just been raised with 50s left until your next Lucid Dreaming.

I think that the problem with Freecure is that mana-efficiency is niche in the current state of the game; Piety is actively avoided as much as humanly possible because of how little impact it has in gameplay and the plethora of oGCDs, Lilies and tools to manage MP all severely limit the need for having mana-efficient options. That isn't to say that those niche moments don't happen but then, there's also the situational awareness of the moment. If I get raised and I have more than 2 people that need to be healed, Cure 1 is less Mana-Efficient than using Medica 1 UNLESS Freecure procs but that's one of the many flaws of Freecure, it's a proc so it's not even reliable. Then, there's also the option of Regen being available that further muddy the waters for freecure.

So, in order for Freecure to be mana-efficient enough to warrant usage, I would've needed to be MP starved in some way to bring me down to dangerously low MP, with all my free oGCDs and MP tools to be on CD (or unavailable due to level synch), with at most 1-2 party members needing to be healed with damage coming in soon enough that Regen would not suffice and PRAY that I proc freecure after the first attempt. I would need to be in Coils at MINE for that to be even remotely possible but at level 100? I think I'd have a better chance at being struck by lightning.

[Shurrikhan]

with 1-2 party members needing to be healed with damage coming in soon enough that Regen would not suffice and PRAY that I proc freecure after the first attempt. I would need to be in Coils at MINE for that to be even remotely possible but at level 100? I think I'd have a better chance at being struck by lightning.

Or, in excess of what Regen can do in time. You can't exactly stack it.

My point is, though, if you concern yourself only with removing effects a new player may overestimate the usefulness of, you both lose salient pointers towards the game's larger health and risk progressively trimming away would-be gameplay-additive levers.

Cure I upgrading directly into Cure II, awkward MP cost increase or no, isn't such a loss in itself, but consider: In most content, Cure II is nearly as much a trap as Cure I, as Medica III heals for 40% more on each target for the same MP cost. And there's virtually no outgoing damage strong enough to require Medica that shouldn't just be handled by Panhaima/Lilybell/etc. So then we're down to AoE Regen with a starting tick and a rare single-target Regen if that person is really taking up to some 133% more damage than everyone else.

Or, we could revise the MP- or total-healing efficiencies of AoEs and the blatant excess of MP and perhaps revise Freecure to a trait whereby each healing spell reduces the costs of the options more expensive than it, situating WHM as the healer with the highest ceiling of at-cost heals possible... should such be necessary. Etc., etc.

[Carighan]

Yeah, although if we had serious incoming damage on the group both in dungeons and in raids, I could see a need for a GCD single target and AoE heal that isn't bound to be a regen-type. Sure, still no reason to have Cure 1 / Benefic 1. Unless, of course, they increase the proc chance to 100%. Then, in a situation where there is a need for a spammable GCD heal in the first place, I could also see the need for a weaker one that buffs the next bigger one.

But eh, unless we're getting such content, this is all meaningless therorizing anyways.

[Sylvain]

I still havn't leveled my WHM as of yet but...

AST and WHM have barely changed healing wise.
Unless I missed something,

They both got a mitigation at lv 100. One being -10% for 15s and one being a big AoE shield both tied to their 2min CD. As a bonus AST is blinded for 2s upon using its skill.
Both got an extra ST ogcd charge, WHM being imp the clear winner here. Going from 1 ->2 charges has much more of an impact than 2 -> 3, all in all, AST gameplay didn't change much here while WHM can now roll its tetra.

AST got a few more goodies through the card system, most notably Bole+Ewer and garanteed the Lady which can be planned around. However, we've had well over 9000 post of people complaining those cards were and are still useless so unless we've gone full 180°, that can't be the sole reason why 7.0 compared to 6.0 WHM feels lacking.

So... what is it that makes WHM so "bad" atm compared to AST, considering both job healing wise didn't change when it comes to AoE healing which is 90% of our healing.

And when it comes to downtime, AST having card and not WHM sounds odd to me... That has always been the case and litterally the reason why so many WHM would play WHM instead of AST... If that wasn't a concern 3 month ago, why now? Nothing has changed for WHM and instead AST got less to do.

[Supersnow845]

I still havn't leveled my WHM as of yet but...

AST and WHM have barely changed healing wise.
Unless I missed something,

They both got a mitigation at lv 100. One being -10% for 15s and one being a big AoE shield both tied to their 2min CD. As a bonus AST is blinded for 2s upon using its skill.
Both got an extra ST ogcd charge, WHM being imp the clear winner here. Going from 1 ->2 charges has much more of an impact than 2 -> 3, all in all, AST gameplay didn't change much here while WHM can now roll its tetra.

AST got a few more goodies through the card system, most notably Bole+Ewer and garanteed the Lady which can be planned around. However, we've had well over 9000 post of people complaining those cards were and are still useless so unless we've gone full 180°, that can't be the sole reason why 7.0 compared to 6.0 WHM feels lacking.

So... what is it that makes WHM so "bad" atm compared to AST, considering both job healing wise didn't change when it comes to AoE healing which is 90% of our healing.

1) AST is now 10-15% stronger than WHM on damage at all percentiles, this disparity will grow over the course of the expansion
2) AST is still a far better mitigator because it has a 1 minute mitigation while WHM has two wonky 2 minute mitigations
3) WHM is still the weakest healer on HPS despite being the “raw healer”
4) besides damage AST now synergies even better with its strongest partner- SCH because of arrow

WHM just continues to completely lack any sort of niche and just exists in a weird limbo where it brings nothing to the raid, it’s just a void

[Sylvain]

snip

I agree, but what i don't understand is, all of your answer are about "whm is *still*".

Yet, apparently everything was fine in 6.0 since AST was the least played job. So if WHM *still* has the same issue as 6.0, why is it a problem now and not before?

i don't really see why you'd consider WHM to be lacking a niche... Instant gcd heal dps neutral, lilly basically, sounds like a good niche. We agree "pure overpowered raw healing" wouldn't be a good niche as its biggest weakness is the lack of mitigation.... What would you like it to be? I find lillies (dps neutral healing) to be a decent niche.

[Supersnow845]

I agree, but what i don't understand is, all of your answer are about "whm is *still*".

Yet, apparently everything was fine in 6.0 since AST was the least played job. So if WHM *still* has the same issue as 6.0, why is it a problem now and not before?

i don't really see why you'd consider WHM to be lacking a niche... Instant gcd heal dps neutral, lilly basically, sounds like a good niche. We agree "pure overpowered raw healing" wouldn't be a good niche as its biggest weakness is the lack of mitigation.... What would you like it to be? I find lillies (dps neutral healing) to be a decent niche.

It was a problem in 6.0, WHM has been in this weird “void” of a niche since they fixed the horrid day one balancing of 5.0 SCH and AST, arguably it was even worse in the early patches of 6.0 than it is now because it didn’t even have neutral lilys. AST wasn’t well played in 6.0 because people didn’t like getting carpal tunnel at 25 playing a job for a 5% damage bonus

“Healing” isn’t a niche, all the healers can heal upfront, there is no benefit to having your niche be “I can heal RIGHT NOW” when we know exactly when the damage comes out anyway

I haven’t thought much about an actual niche for WHM since it lost its niche in 5.0. Before that WHM was the dominant AOE healing as SCH struggled in AOE and WST was more like an “off healer”. Maybe it’s a healer who could gain more benefits the less overhealing it does. That would create interesting tension with lily’s which you have to spend because they are a DPS gain, trying to avoid overhealing while still spending all your lily’s sounds interesting to me but I’ve also put almost no proper thought into this so that’s just a spitball