Evercold White Mage first impressions

[Doopliss]

The WHM showcase really soured me, too. I was honestly blown away that they took the complaint about it being monotonous to press Glare over and over and over again and rectified it by just...changing the animation that happened when you continued to press that same exact button over and over again. That's actually some insane key jingling to me. Having no Assize or Dia(?) in sight made this feel especially bad. I want to think this early prototype is just that--a prototype--but their Healer showcases have been underwhelming in every fanfest since SHB, and never really prove to be more interesting once they're finalized for launch...

Obviously I know the Reborn version is still there to play, but given that the Evolved versions are going to be a little bit stronger (and that, really, the Reborn versions are probably going to get eventually phased out), this feels especially bad. I can only hope that the fifth time they've claimed that encounters will require more healing will be actually true this time.

[EaMett]

Obviously I know the Reborn version is still there to play, but given that the Evolved versions are going to be a little bit stronger (and that, really, the Reborn versions are probably going to get eventually phased out), this feels especially bad. I can only hope that the fifth time they've claimed that encounters will require more healing will be actually true this time.

It won't. I'll say the same thing I've been saying for years. The healing in ultimates is already not enough to compensate for the flaws in their design philosophy and the player base would NEVER manage to handle that as a new standard, so clearly the fix needs to be something else. The only hope is that they start randomizing healing requirements in encounters. But I somehow highly doubt they would do that drastic of a change with their continual effort to keep things backwards compatible with priori encounters.

[ZXN]

My main concern is that they showed off Evolved White Mage, but not when next to a Reborn White Mage. Like cool, we know Evo White mage gets a instant cast glare "combo", a high cure spell, a holy bomb thing that gets stronger with the number of stacks it has, Afflatus Solace getting the single target Regen effect, Aquaveil and Benison being made into one, etc etc. But all of this means nothing if I don't see how it plays when compared alongside how Reb White Mage will play in Evercold.

If Reb White Mage keeps things like Assize, Asylum, Dia, Presence Of Mind, Cure III, and Thin Air for a few examples, then just how does that stack up against Evo White Mage's kit/damage output? They kind of tried to emphasis the Evo versions were not going to be the "easy" mode versions of the jobs, yet stated like 5 or 6 times for White Mage during it's presentation that the Evo Version made things "easier" for the job, which already was very simple to begin with. They also didn't even use some of the buttons as both Holy III and Liturgy Of The Bell were never pressed during the presentation once, so who knows if some of the skills I mentioned got baked into them as well already, like Evo White Mage's Bell Liturgy also getting the Asylum puddle, or Evo White Mage's Medica allowing you to select a target for it's AOE heal like Cure III does for examples.

Obviously until we get the Evercold Job Trailer for the new stuff they're getting they can't really show off too much, but it's kind of hard for me to be really "happy" or "disappointed" about it all or even give any type of usable feedback until we can actually see a clear comparison between the two job modes and not just "well here is what it's going to look like" and then just have to imagine what it can be going forward, especially if we're being told upfront that the Evolved versions of the jobs, to Yoshi-P and the other devs anyway, are going to be STRONGER then the Reborn versions. It doesn't matter if it's "slightly" stronger either, immediately going "Evolved mode jobs will be stronger then Reborn Mode jobs" to something you JUST revealed that is coming next expansion is going to send a lot of red flags to people, especially when you cannot really show too much off currently and the only re-assurance people are going to get for the next several months is going to be "I swear it'll be okay, just trust me."

[Daralii]

especially when you cannot really show too much off currently and the only re-assurance people are going to get for the next several months is going to be "I swear it'll be okay, just trust me."

"This lily system looks like garbage, but you'll love it, trust me."
"You won't miss those damage spells, you'll need to GCD heal more and that'll make up for it, trust me."
"You won't miss all those spells and cooldowns, the system will be great, trust me."

I barely play healers, and I want to be optimistic about this because it's such a large departure from what they've been doing for the last 7 or 8 years, but the warning signs are there yet again.