Evercold White Mage first impressions

[Supersnow845]

One thing that I just thought of (sorry I know this isn’t about WHM but it concerns healers)

How will the devs handle reborn SCH?

Unless SCH retains its ridiculous Mitigative capacity in evolved (which will require SGE to also maintain something similar) it’ll be an easy decision to lose 3% of a SCH’s damage to have it play in reborn and continue to use spreadlo as it currently functions

I can imagine reborn spreadlo is going to be a major noose around the neck of the evolved shield healers because they either have to match it (which unbalances the game like current spreadlo does) or get dumped for spreadlo

[Ankhira]

One thing that I just thought of (sorry I know this isn’t about WHM but it concerns healers)

How will the devs handle reborn SCH?

Unless SCH retains its ridiculous Mitigative capacity in evolved (which will require SGE to also maintain something similar) it’ll be an easy decision to lose 3% of a SCH’s damage to have it play in reborn and continue to use spreadlo as it currently functions

I can imagine reborn spreadlo is going to be a major noose around the neck of the evolved shield healers because they either have to match it (which unbalances the game like current spreadlo does) or get dumped for spreadlo

I'm hoping they'll integrate the fairy more, SCH has potential to be even more fun, I always felt like SCH is this weird hybrid between fairy magick and tactician spells, so if they give Sage the tactician fantasy and bring SCH more towards fairy magic I'd quite like that overall, I'm also not going to 100% write off WHM yet ofc, I'm waiting to see if they'll actually deliver on their promise of changing fight design going forward. But I think SCH can be either more fun or they're going to completely ruin it. Thats why I'm like a little concerned for it.

[Loggos]

I'll copy-paste my thoughts from another thread because as somebody who enjoys PvP a lot (and who used to main AST but switched to PCT in PvE because I didn't like where AST was going) I am carefully optimistic.

If they manage to recreate the individual identities and (in my humble opinion) enjoyable gameplay of PvP healers in conjunction with a new fight design that accommodates their kits/gameplay loops then I think this could be a big win for healers.

Positive

Coming from PvP I am carefully optimistic because my impression was that PvE white mage might be inspired by its PvP counterpart.

WHM in PvP is straight-forward and easy to understand but (I think) it's very fun (and not brain-dead). In my opinion it's a really good embodiment of "easy to learn, hard to master".


If the dev team manages to recreate the gameplay and class design of PvP healers then this is going to be a win because each healer has their completely unique identity. They're not reskins of each other. They also feel meaningful because despite their reduced buttons they have diverse tools for different gameplay decisions. They just don't suffer from redundancy.

For example (in my humble opinion), as WHM you have a gameplay loop with satisfying variety because damage, healing and utility alternate in quick succession but are never static/always random so you still have to think on your feet. This also makes the fact that you often cast (insta) glare a lot less frustrating because your DPS is constantly "interrupted" by healing or utility.
(In terms of utility something like Polymorph is probably hard to adapt for PvE because obviously you can't polymorph a boss but maybe the devs can find suitable PvE replacement skills.)

Healing also feels a lot more strategic and meaningful because you have to hard-cast it and you are punished a lot for bad positioning/distance/risky maneuvers. And your heals are limited. This means every heal has to be deliberate and well-planned because you need to be sure you can commit to it and you won’t miss it later as long as it’s still on CD. (Of course heals are also limited to the specific number they are because of recuperate. But I think you can recreate the same principle of resource management in PvE.)

This brings me to the point about PvE hard-casting heals (vs. instant DPS). I've seen criticism of it but I really like this choice if they manage to recreate this same kind of strategy/commitment requirement in PvE.
When I play healer I want the main part of my brain power go to the question how I heal best/most effectively.
No, I am not saying healers shouldn't DPS! (On the contrary, as I pointed out above, the unscripted alternation between healing and dps is what makes PvP WHM fun.)
And of course since it's the "easy" healing job I know they won't go for super punishing set-ups in normal content. But maybe in the new mid-core raid tier and above.

Concerns

I can't give a definitive "negative" because we don’t have the actual kit and new fight design yet but it’s definitely a big concern.

Of course PvP and PvE are very different modes.

So the success of WHM and the other healers will stand and fall with the question whether the dev team will be able to mimic the fast-paced randomness/unpredictability of PvP in PvE, that demands of players to make different active decisions vs. a strict routine.

I completely understand players worrying that an even more simplified rotation will completely neuter the job and not bring the promised individuality and challenge.

The dev team really needs to commit to their promise/insight that currently boss fights have too much downtime (to accommodate the 2 min meta) and that evolved jobs will lead to a lot more active and dynamic boss fights.
Randomness is a really important factor here in addition to pace/activity so I sincerely hope the dev team will make this a core principle of their fight design (or at least pseudo-randomness).
That is the key ingredient that makes every PvP class work.

If those are just empty words and the fights stay too similar to how they are now a WHM design like in PvP will be incredibly unsatisfying.

So I hope, their new approach will reflect the philosophy of easy to learn, hard to master.

[Daudream]

I'm hoping they'll integrate the fairy more, SCH has potential to be even more fun, I always felt like SCH is this weird hybrid between fairy magick and tactician spells, so if they give Sage the tactician fantasy and bring SCH more towards fairy magic I'd quite like that overall.

Can SCH just get to be the tactician with a healing companion and SGE just be the battle medic it's presented as? I'm kinda not on board with SGE seemingly only existing to leech SCH's identity... which is not to say I'm against the faerie getting more use as it's part of said tactician fantasy, but I don't want SCH to turn into a pixie itself. I love it for the distinction between the SCH and it's companion when it comes to how the spells effects look, they compliment each other rather than being only butterflies and sparkles or stratagems and commands.

As for WHM what was shown is raising several red flags for me, not just about WHM itself but for all the healers, I didn't feel like the job fantasy was preserved or enhanced but rather diminished and I'm especially bothered by temperance getting a speed boost attached, feeling like it's stepping on SCH's toes there or that SCH has had a fun skill removed (expedient) WHM just got a dash added, so can't that stay as a movement tool instead?

I really want evolved mode to be fun, and I like the base idea of it in concept, just can't help but worry and feel prematurely upset after so long...

[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."

[Aidorouge]

One thing that I just thought of (sorry I know this isn’t about WHM but it concerns healers)

How will the devs handle reborn SCH?

Unless SCH retains its ridiculous Mitigative capacity in evolved (which will require SGE to also maintain something similar) it’ll be an easy decision to lose 3% of a SCH’s damage to have it play in reborn and continue to use spreadlo as it currently functions

I can imagine reborn spreadlo is going to be a major noose around the neck of the evolved shield healers because they either have to match it (which unbalances the game like current spreadlo does) or get dumped for spreadlo

I assume this is what they meant by "evolved had better damage than reborn in our testing".

It's not because evolved has higher potency or its churning out more attacks per second, it's because fights may start to compliment evolved rotations over reborn ones. IE: You get to keep the spreadlo on reborn SCH, but it's not actually worth using anymore because fights don't account for it/the extra mitigation is wasteful while evolved SCH provides more than enough shielding while ALSO being able to keep firing off attacks.

It may be the same with all jobs where the reborn version is at a specific disadvantage because fights actively work against them going forward. Take the BRD's evolved side-roll versus their current backstep, where all it would take is a fight dropping AOEs in the outer parts of the arena in a spread that will murk a backstepper and not a side-roller and now suddenly the debuffed/dead reborn BRD is "doing less damage as per their testing".

With the 2-minute meta going away too, there's no telling how fights are going to be changed to where a reborn job's kit may be an actual detriment in certain encounters because it lacks for mobility or has to take extra steps to accomplish the same thing an evolved job can do. (Like an evolved NIN not having to deal with Mudras while a reborn one still does.)

[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.

[Supersnow845]

I assume this is what they meant by "evolved had better damage than reborn in our testing".

It's not because evolved has higher potency or its churning out more attacks per second, it's because fights may start to compliment evolved rotations over reborn ones. IE: You get to keep the spreadlo on reborn SCH, but it's not actually worth using anymore because fights don't account for it/the extra mitigation is wasteful while evolved SCH provides more than enough shielding while ALSO being able to keep firing off attacks.

It may be the same with all jobs where the reborn version is at a specific disadvantage because fights actively work against them going forward. Take the BRD's evolved side-roll versus their current backstep, where all it would take is a fight dropping AOEs in the outer parts of the arena in a spread that will murk a backstepper and not a side-roller and now suddenly the debuffed/dead reborn BRD is "doing less damage as per their testing".

With the 2-minute meta going away too, there's no telling how fights are going to be changed to where a reborn job's kit may be an actual detriment in certain encounters because it lacks for mobility or has to take extra steps to accomplish the same thing an evolved job can do. (Like an evolved NIN not having to deal with Mudras while a reborn one still does.)

I’m not saying you are wrong but I really don’t trust the devs to made 23 evolved jobs, retain the 21 reborn jobs and specifically tailor encounters to always ensure the reborn jobs are just worse enough to always want to pick the evolved jobs but to not make the reborn jobs unplayable that doesn’t amount to anything other than a slight damage nerf

Like I used SCH because everyone knows spreadlo’s effect on the game meta but like what about current mechanics where cure 3 has a niche? Anytime you split the party cure 3 has a niche as it’s WHM’s only distance AOE heal. As soon as cure 3 makes a mechanic easier then 3% nerf on damage becomes a small price to pay

[Sunhwapark]

I briefly looked at a video and saw the sanctity thing.
Looks like they just brought back the system they tried in Stormblood for lilies where you could cure II (or fish cure I procs, why? idk) and then spend them on your next divine benison for a reduced cast time, or something? It's been a long time so my memory is a bit foggy, but I still recall it existing at some point.

I don't really have any judgement on how the class has been presented so far, but I'm not surprised about these design choices.