Thread: Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

I'm a long time healer. In any game I can play one, that's what I gravitate to, be it a shooter or an MMO. I've been playing White Mage almost exclusively since I landed in Eorzea around 3 years ago. I've done content ranging from casual to cutting edge progression playing WHM and SCH. WHM is, by far, my favourite, and seeing it gutted like it has been makes me frustrated.


THE WHM IDENTITY, OR LACK THEREOF

Back in ARR, WHM and SCH complemented each other almost perfectly. The WHM handled the bulk of the heavy healing duty with its powerful single target and AoE heals, while SCH covered mitigation and provided utility, spot healing and additional DPS to the party. They were two sides of the same coin.

Since Heavensward landed, SCH (and AST) have been encroaching on WHM's strengths. SCH received skills to shore up the weaknesses to its kit that WHM used to cover. AST has been almost toe-to-toe with WHM's healing toolkit for ages, while also having a ridiculous complement of raid utility and mitigative skills. WHM however, hasn't pushed back at all. It received more personal DPS and healing skills. Proshell was rolled into Protect. Graniteskin, a trait for WHM's only mitigation, was removed, so that it was more "fair" for other healers to use. The little that made WHM uniquely powerful was leached away slowly as AST was buffed, bringing them up to par on healing ability, but leaving a vast gulf between them in every other aspect.

We now have two well-rounded healers (one far moreso than the other), and one which is very not. And this is even before stepping into the mess that Stormblood is going to make of us.



SO WHAT'S LOUSY ABOUT LILIES?

We can go on all day about the RNG nature of them. How we have to inefficiently expend 15 cure I/II casts on average (almost 40 seconds of -continuous- casting!) without using -any- of the affected abilities in between to reach 3 lilies, for the oh-so-amazing outcome of 20% recast reduction on a single skill. Meanwhile, an AST could draw a Spear, which does the same thing for -all abilities- used during its duration, and not even regret instantly tossing it into Royal Road or Redraw (or now, Minor Arcana).

That is how "valuable" the reward of this new system is. Getting a worse version of AST's trash card *if you're lucky*. It feels like an incredibly sick joke at the expense of WHM.

The reason for this is simple. Healers, like tanks and DPS classes, typically plan out their ability usage. Either it's something saved for a particular part of the fight or a certain situation (Tetra, Benediction, Asylum) or it's something you generally use almost on cooldown if the encounter/situation permits it (Assize).

Recast reduction, unless it is a HUGE amount, or ability cooldowns are incredibly long, is useless. The majority of skills affected by lilies will be available a few seconds early and will sit unused until the planned moment comes along anyway.

Even Secret of the Lily 2, which could be a fantastic boon, falls flat, as you (once again) have to fight against RNG even if you satisfy the condition.



(NOT SO) DIVINE BENISON

This "addition" is one that makes me *seethe*. You remove WHM's *only* mitigation, as weak as it was thanks to the removal of Graniteskin, and gate it behind lilies? On a 60 second cooldown? And it's single target? What the heck? Not only have you weakened general pull strategies, you've utterly neutered White Mage's ability to handle certain mechanics in older content (Imdugud's Prey in T10 as a very valid example). And for what? Was Stoneskin too strong, even at 10%? Even on a Defiance Warrior it wasn't even equivalent to a non-crit Adlo, and that has a heal component to it!

Give me back my Stoneskin. This replacement is garbage.



NOW WHAT'S CRUMMY ABOUT CONFESSIONS?

On top of Lily RNG, we now have Confessions, once more linked to inefficient use of Cure/Cure II spam. Except it's worse. The same 20% per cast of Cure I/II on a target to get a Confession stack.. that lasts 30 seconds before expiring. Plenary Indulgence has the potential to be an incredibly powerful oGCD AoE heal. Instead, it falls flat on its face and will just sometimes replace the use of a Tetra or a Cure/Cure II on the tank if they happen to have stacks when you'd otherwise use it.

Honestly, even if these systems weren't utterly awful in concept by the RNG gating they have, they'd be doomed to failure, because the crux of the issue is that none of these systems sound fun. None of them sound interesting. Or compelling. Or impactful. It's too much effort for no real reward. No decent WHM spends their time spamming Cure spells. It's inefficient. It's slow. Cure and Cure 2 are what you fall back on when you have nothing else to do the job. Regen and Medica 2 are our real workhorses. It feels like an afterthought for one of the most iconic classes in the Final Fantasy series, and seems to show a disconnect between how the devs think WHM is played (or want it to be played), and how it's actually played.

We already have a healer based around playing around RNG - AST. We don't want, nor need, WHM to get it as well. RNG without ways to game the system or mitigate/make use of bad rolls (which AST now has both of) is not fun whatsoever.

Why do we not have Faith/Bravery to aid our allies? Or Haste? Or Float or Reflect for mitigation?

Why are we left to languish, defined as a "pure healer", when our compatriots are capable of so much more than we are outside of healing, but are also readily capable to match our output when the situation calls for it? What are we for if the -one- thing we've been left with means nothing in the face of encounter design that requires all combinations to be viable (except double WHM of course. Because heaven forbid WHM have some raidwide mitigation).

Something has to give somewhere.