Suggestion for future WHM skills

[Mimilu]

Personally, I wouldn't mind if WHM got Haste but AST and SCH both already have abilities like it (Arrow and Selene's Fey Wind), so it's not really helping differentiate the jobs.
You're idea for a Water II spell is good but please no knockback effect, it would be unbearable. >x>
One change I would like to see is with Stoneskin II. I would suggest turning it into a oGCD ability, instant cast, and have it useable during battle with either a 60 or 90 second cooldown. This will give it mitigation and some utility.

I think one of the main problems with coming up with ideas for unique skills is that WHMs in past FFs have always been the straight-forward healing job, even in games that present additional healers. Even in games were they have buff and debuff spells, the spells are generally pretty straight-forward, increasing or decrease main or secondary stats or mitigating damage, both things AST and SCH already do in this game. They also had status effect spells but almost all of their usual status effects are already in the game as boss mechanics.
For me, I think looking into upping WHM's damage, giving them more ways to heal while in Cleric-Stance, and fixing their MP issues while DPSing is they way to go.

[Doriann]

@Cleric Stance: What sort of overhaul would you suggest?

Just make it baseline. healer's damage spells scale of MND instead of INT. Cleric stance is a very shitty stance dancing imo, I wouldn't miss it if it were gone

[Cynfael]

Just make it baseline. healer's damage spells scale of MND instead of INT. Cleric stance is a very shitty stance dancing imo, I wouldn't miss it if it were gone

I'd be okay with this if they increased healer attack magic potency commensurately. Simply removing Cleric Stance would be a nerf.

As others have pointed out, this also wouldn't work unless INT and MND were a combined into a single magic stat or unless ACN spells were coded to scale off of the higher of the caster's INT and MND stats.

[VanilleFang]

Not only would it be weird from a balance perspective, as Cynfael pointed out, but I personally ally 5hink it would make playing a healer even easier if they were to remove Cleric Stance and make MND an all-in-one stat for healers.

Not only that but I have not seen a solid reason as to why they should do this outside "Cleric Stance sucks".

[Rivxkobe]

Just make it baseline. healer's damage spells scale of MND instead of INT. Cleric stance is a very shitty stance dancing imo, I wouldn't miss it if it were gone

In your opinion, but your opinion is just that.

If you can come up with no actually reasons as to why damage scaling off MND and removing CS would be a good thing other than "CS is shitty" then this is a moot discussion as it would be a straight up damage nerf and make the healer role easier than it already is.

[Cyrocco]

Why not give WHM the option to temporarily trade some of that healing power for additional, personal, effects. This allows other classes to keep their hold on their Support but also gives White Mage more utility within itself, and adaptability.

So let's say each "Stance" (Maybe not a "Stance" because those are perpetual) lasts for a full minute with a Cooldown of 3 minutes. (I don't know skills but just some groundwork)

Wind "Stance," reducing overall heal output, but decreasing cast and cooldown times ("Stances" excluded).

Earth "Stance," again, reducing overall heal output, but reduces MP cost of all spells.

Water "Stance," same reduction, yadayada, but gives spells a smash "splash effect" so they get a small AoE around the original target.

Also, I'd think these spells would also effect Damage skills, but since uh- they wouldn't hurt damage, I'd make it so you couldn't cancel them out.

Disclaimer: I'm not a WHM I'm just an AST that can't log in right now. >>''

[Sylvain]

snip

I wouldn't go for stance as we already have more than enough stances in this game.
However I thought of the whole Elemental enhancing idea for a while.

Here is what I've been thinking.


New trait: Elemental gathering
Every 45sec, you gather one random elemental spirit for a maximum of three different spirit. If you gather an element while 3 are already held, the newest replace the oldest.
Elemental spirit can be consumed to enhance / allow some spells.
Wisp of the appropriate texture and color representing the element float around the WHM a bit like the BLM. By gathering I mean you simply acquire one elemental "charge" every 45sec

new skill
Elemental attunement: Enhance your next spell with the appropriate spirit and consume it in the process. 15sec CD

Earth spirit enhanced / allowed spells
StoneIII : Transform StoneIII into StoneIV for 15sec: 300 potency, apply slow from StoneI
StoneSkinII: Instant, allow the cast of StoneSkinII in fight for free
Stone Veil: Requires one Earth spirit to be cast. All excess heals done by you will shield the target for up to 50% of their maximum Health for 10sec. Last 15sec.


Wind Enhanced spirit / allowed spells
AeroIII : Transforms AeroIII into AeroIV being a combination of AeroI II III
Assize: Engulf player with wind increasing their movement speed by 25% for 15sec.
Ascendant Wind: Requires a wind spirit Every spell cast increase the potency of your next spell by 5%. Last 20sec

Water Enhanced spirit / allowed spells
Holy: For 15sec, Turns Fluid Aura into Waterga which is a ranged AoE spell like gravity. Animation is taken from the water aoe explosion casted by the wizard from in the library.
Asylum: [Can only be activated when Asylum is up] the barrier explodes healing anyone within it for 500 potency
Water spirit: Requires a water spirit. Call forth a water spirit which heal your allies or attack enemies if you are under cleric stance. Last 20sec.

Elemental Surge: Call forth a spirit of nature allowing you to enhance one spell of any element. Last 15sec 120sec CD.

Since every spirit is drawn randomly, you have an average 135sec cooldown on one of these effect at any given time.
You can't fish for an element as the drawing is random. I thought of preventing the player from having access to more than one of the same but I'm sure this would lead to player only consuming one element to always get the desired one every 45sec.
By making the gathering random, you only incite the player to consume at least one spirit every 45sec before a gathering.
Please, not only give your feedback but if you like the core idea, what new spell would like to see using this mechanic.

[Lambdafish]

snip

I like that, its just different enough from AST to make it viable while also giving WHM a resource management mechanic (it also doesn't add new skills). The only thing that I don't like is the initial trait, and I feel like getting a random element every 45 seconds removes the player interaction (and forces the WHM to use it for efficiency).

[Sylvain]

(it also doesn't add new skills). The only thing that I don't like is the initial trait, and I feel like getting a random element every 45 seconds removes the player interaction (and forces the WHM to use it for efficiency).

Well It does add some skill.
1 to activate the next empowered spell and I putted Stone Veil. Ascendant Wind, Water Spirit and Elemental Surge as a Joker. Obviously many things could be reworked to remove some skill or merge them etc.
But in fact you get more effective spell since you empower them.

So about the random element, at first I thought "you can only have 1 of each type at any given time".
But this would lead to one thing, let say globally speaking, you would like to have Ascendant Wind as much as possible. Then the ideal solution would be to only consume to wind element. Since you can't have more than 1 of the same, you'd always end up "drawing" the wind element every 45sec. Which is not something I'd wish as a designer.
Then I thought "oh perhaps we could put every element gathering on its own independant cooldown, like every 120sec you get one of every element with each element having its own cooldown." problem is, you'd end up in a situation where you'd force the player to spend its 3 element at least every 120sec which might be counter productive depending on the fight.

This is why I thought, every X sec (I found 30 to be too short, 60 to be too long, 45 seems a good number, but at this point it's purely personal and would require extensive testing obviously)
you get one random element. This way, not only can't you force an element since they're random, but your player get a steady flow of charge making it something usable throughout the course of the fight instead of adding even more spell to the list of "120-180sec"cooldown the WHM has. On the other hand, there is an element of randomness. This is why I added at least effective "healing" boost and "dps" to every element. So that if the fight doesn't require heal and you want to dps, no matter which element is currently available, you can. Some might be better than others, but there wouldn't be a moment where you think "We need more dps but... I only got 3 water spirit... so no dps boost" and vice verca