Thread: Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

Every healer lost something. Maybe there is a reason we aren't seeing that got AST those boosts. Maybe they've already been tweaked. In comparison to the other healers they seem to have gotten a bit more love I agree, but maybe they are the baseline square will raise us to? Maybe ASTs build was just done first.

Just try to stay positive. This isn't a 'nerf AST' thread this is a 'fix WHM' thread.

I didn't say Nerf Astro, Just asked if we could get Balance, Pets, Adlos ect.
Its not going to happen but could always dream. You know maybe the other two healers should share the "Really good Toys."

Originally Posted by Jxnibbles

I didn't say Nerf Astro, Just asked if we could get Balance, Pets, Adlos ect.
Its not going to happen but could always dream. You know maybe the other two healers should share the "Really good Toys."

I'd rather we get our own stuff than borrow toys from the other classes. Down that road lies homogenized healers. There have been a ton of awesome suggestions in this thread for uniquely WHM stuff. ReRaise is probably my favorite but Reflect and Dia are also great.

I've mained White Mage for 3 years, and I'm personally very disappointed with these changes.

The Secret of the Lily UI element, to me, feels very tacked on. If it was something that had been introduced beyond lv60 through some story connection (perhaps the Primal Lakshmi) I might have been able to swallow it. But with the data we have, it in fact comes at lv52 - so, it has no relationship whatsover with any thematics that were built up during the Conjurer/White Mage story.

I think it's a loss not to have directed this toward being more thematic; perhaps such as separate Elemental & Lifestream gauges that, while full, would increase the spellcasting ability (spell speed, the way Square Enix seemed to want) of the respectively-concerned spells (elemental attacks/healing magic). So, as curative spells are used and strain the connection to the lifestream, the WHM's spellspeed bonus for healing would recede... but then would be an ideal time to switch to elemental combat magic, DPSing while the lifestream gauge would resplenish.

To me this would be an echo of how White Mage were used to playing with Stance-Dancing, but with positive reinforcements rather than restrictions. It'd have been rewarding us with more dynamic play when we were trying to get the most out of our class. High-end actions (Quake, Flood, Tornado, Re-Raise, Curaga, Reflect) could have been cap-stone abilities that could have been empowered by being used while their respective gauge would have been high.

* * *

Losing Aero due to folding it in Aero 2 means that we will no longer be able to cast Aero 1/2/3 and keep up those DoTs on the same target. With the numbers we currently have, it doesn't look like the new Aero 2's potency currently makes up for that (and Aero 2 remains a cruelly shorter 12 seconds compared to the 18 second Aero 1).

Hopefully, this will get corrected, but right now, Aero 2 as shown is currently a worse ability than Aero 1. Shorter duration, same damage, bigger MP cost.

* * *

Thin Air is a very nice ability. I believe this is common consensus for most WHM players; especially in the context of repeated Holy casts combined with Presence of Mind. The recast of 4 minutes, though, means that it'll be only an occasionally used novelty (Due to cooldowns/remaining MP, I holy spam every 2 encounters - this might help me increase the frequency to 3 holy spams per 4 encounters). It is nice, but due to the recast, it's not as amazing at it sounds.

* * *

Divine Benison is a slightly better Stoneskin potency-wise that has an extremely long recast, and - according to our current info - is cruelly gated. Its spontaneity seems to be its only real asset, to gird a target against a damage spike, but that would be much better if it wasn't already gated by Lilies (and inefficiently so at that: useable at 1 lily, but consumes all the lilies you have? Yick).

This hardly feels like an improvement. I guess I could get much more behind it if - at least - it could consume a Lily like a resource, similarily to how Aetherflow works, without being hampered by such a long recast time (no recast would make it an amazing gated ability worth preparing for).

* * *

Plenary Indulgence, the lv70 WHM capstone. The confession stack gating seems offputting, but let's take a step back and take a careful look at it. This ability has no range, it's a 30y point-blank AoE that comes from the White Mage herself - this is twice the radius of Assize, which seems decent. The spell also has an extremely fast recast time of 15 seconds, without any MP cost.

So, the way we could surmise it'd work is that the people we cure would accrue confession stacks. In 15 second, we can do about 3 Cure spells. So, if I cured a tank, a DPS and then the other DPS, triggering Plenary Indulgence would each give them extra healing equal to a Cure spell. 3 confessions on the same character would equate roughly to a Cure 2.

If it just came to that, Plenary Indulgence could come across as a conditional, but potentially very effective and MP-economical source of healings. WHMs could rejoice; it's not exciting, but it is potentially powerful.

BUT - Confession stacks have a 20% chance of happening on every Cure 1/Cure 2 spells.Meaning that it'd take on average 5 Cure spells (roughly 25 seconds) to have a decent chance of getting -something- out of Plenary Indulgence, and up to 75 seconds to garner its full potential.

That measly chance to get a confession stack reduces Plenary Indulgence from 'interesting' to 'downright mediocre'... which is sad for an ability that is supposedly the lv70 capstone. It doesn't even measure up to Tetragramation.

* * *

And on top of that, White Mage loses most of its ability to role actions... meaning that just in the act of recuperating these essentials, there's no way for a WHM to enjoy the few other new abilities without sacrificing something relatively important. If I'd indulge in dramatizing, I'd call that "adding insult to injury".

. . .

My impression thus far? This is disheartening. Most of the abilities we get fail to seem fun, fail to feel truly potent, fail to make playing WHM feel like a rewarding and valued job to pursue. I don't know what the Devs at Square Enix were thinking, but this is not the White Mage I was excited to continue playing. I see what the other jobs have been given, and it often feels like they've been hit on the nail. I look at the arguments that the Devs know better, have the bigger picture; but based on what I've witnessed so far, what I see is the work of people that look extremely disconnected to what FF14 had made of the Conjurer/White Mage before.

I will wait for the patch notes, but it's hard not to feel glum.