Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Reiryuu]

Salty rant

Why does a job need to sink so low as to become a detriment in order to get fixed or get the attention it needs? Is it not the job of the devs and the community to listen to and provide feedback (respectively) so that this doesn't happen? Yeah, WHM is fine in content that requires healing because that's what the devs made it do-- heal. But that doesn't mean that it's not being eclipsed in utility when it comes down to SCH and AST. Can you honestly tell me, right now, one good reason a group would take a white mage to The Interdimensional Rift when they can have a SCH/AST combo instead? What is it you think a WHM can do that a Scholar and Astrologian can't do while providing just as sufficient healing power as a white mage does?

[Yuyuka3]

snip

Oh, really now. Then please, tell me why, for example, I barely ever found a duty finder group for stuff like Zurvan willing to take a WHM with them. And I don't mean I joined them and got kicked for underperforming, I literally only found groups searching for SCH/AST teams or only one or the other. Tell me why 90% of all raid statics search AST/SCH instead of WHM. Tell me why I had two groups normally running with AST complain that they are slower than usual in their Alexander Savage kills, even though I gave it my all, pushed out not too shabby DPS, while solo-healing and nobody dying. If WHM isn't a liability, then why does nobody want to take the class for anything but casual or farm content. Before 3.4 WHM was suboptimal? Aren't you confusing something here? Balance and how ridiculous AST buffs were destroyed the class, because why take it when AST is simply better in everything it does. Can WHM clear everything? YES. Is WHM prefered for anything, or has significant advantages over AST or SCH? NO.

And that's exactly what this here is about, and what you apparently don't want to get into your head. WHM complain because we don't get what we need to stay competitive and what literally everyone else in our role has. We instead, once again, loose something were we should win instead. You played PLD? Shouldn't you know best why we are so scared right now, then? As things look like right now, they are screwing WHM over, again, and nothing they showed or said so far implied the opposite. We shouldn't be too worked up because we need to take up Shroud from the job action list? Because now others can manage our MP for us? Do you even know how ridiculous this statement actually is???
Ever since 2.0, bards complained with no end about having to play MP song for healers, because it lowers their dps. Why exactly should this be any different in the future, huh? Give only one good reason why this should change. ONE. I dare you.

And yes, we actually can, because if I count all nerfes and all buffs WHM ever got, nerfs beat buffs at least 6:1. Holy? Got nerfed three times if you count 1.0, too. Stoneskin? Nerfed. Now most likely removed. Protect? Everyone can have it. Cure III? I count that as a nerf since I actually prefered the old trait; which, btw, AST ended up getting. I also preferred the old Medica II, btw, even if that change was more neutral in the end. Oh, right, they also nerfed, and now likely removed, Presence of Mind. I honestly cannot remember all nerfs WHM got because there are simply too many of them for me to keep track.

Also, didn't you want to stay away from this topics?

[DreamWeaver]

WHMs have the right to be upset right now:


Our job action trailer is one of the worst to be shown (2 shared actions, Aero 3, Aero 2, Stone 4, some cures, only the water barrier thingy is somewhat interesting).

Yoshida's comment of "Bolstering WHM's focus as a Pure Healer" (Paraphrased).

1 of WHM's key defining skills - Divine Seal is relegated to shared actions and Yoshida did not even address this in any way shape or form, which in turn caused players to wildly speculate.

All of the above AFTER Yoshida have promised us they'll look into healer and tank balance. (To be fair, it seems they did manage to deliver half of it based on feedback regarding Paladins, unfortunately WHM is the undelivered part).


That being said, complaining will not help at this stage of the development, so let's be the better person and wait impatiently for SB to drop for our final verdict.
And if the verdict is as what we feared? Then that's the time for us WHM brethren to rise up and campaign for change in 4.1.

[Acidblood]

You won't always need Esuna.

True, but even if you only need Esuna sometimes, you're pretty much going to need to take it all of the time. e.g. It may be that rare dungeon that actually needs Esuna, but if you are going into a roulette, can you really take the chance you are not going to end up in that one dungeon that has a nasty debuff (or Doom)? Sorry guys, don't have a Esuna, can't do this... not a good look.

By making Esuna optional though, does this now mean that it really is optional? i.e. is the worst we are ever going to see outside of a savage raid a minor poison or slow? Because if not, I thought the whole point of this cross-role thing is so that people didn't end up without the tools to do the job, and if so, then FFXIV just got way more boring

PS. Not sure about you, but I have no love for having to swap abilities (and hotbar buttons) based on content, so if all these skills are not truely optional then this new 'improved' system is nothing but a backwards step.

Also on that esuna thing, keep in mind you can set up those on the run in dungeons.

If that is the case, then why not just cut out the middle man let us have all of 'sometimes required' abilities all of the time... seriously, swaping stuff in and out like that is going to be a major pain, and likely take up the hotbar space anyway just so that you can press it from muscle memory and not having to remember that your X ability is now Y.

Didn't they say changing jobs outside of a sanctuary wouldn't impose the cooldown penalty? With the role skill system and the system of roulettes, I'd be surprised if the same didn't apply to role skill changes. You can probably just switch them around so long as you're not in combat.

Then what is the point of even making them 'optional'? Simply to make us stop every other pull because boss A has a debuff that needs to be removed and boss B doesn't... That just sounds like are serious pain, not to mention really bad design; is the new 'skill gap' going to be knowing what abilities you need to have equiped for a given encounter? I would like to think that this new system won't be that annoying, but given the abilities they chose to put in it, I don't have very high hopes.

[Azper]

Due to the casting animation, and the ground effect, I will be thoroughly convinced that stone IV is AoE until stated otherwise.

Well given the fact on the very slide where they talked about combining actions in this manner, they specifically listed Stone I through Stone IV, I'd say it's almost certainly a single target spell.

[MizArai]

I could reflect the same argument back to you, and just because a spell has a tier number doesn't mean it's a single target ability (Thunder 2 and 4).

My point in mentioning Thunder was that the single target spells will stack and the AoE spells will stack. If Stone IV is an AoE, then it should not/ would not stack with the single target spells, since there will always be times when you prefer to use single target spells instead of AoEs.

[MizArai]

Didn't they say changing jobs outside of a sanctuary wouldn't impose the cooldown penalty? With the role skill system and the system of roulettes, I'd be surprised if the same didn't apply to role skill changes. You can probably just switch them around so long as you're not in combat.

They had said that spells/ skills would not have a cooldown, but abilities still will have a cooldown. That makes me assume that anything (or at least most things) on the role skill would have a cooldown, since most of those seem to be abilities currently, unless they're changing that too. *sighs* Wish I could translate Japanese now.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

So, let me get this straight. You're saying that WHMs aren't allowed to complain about anything because they aren't bad to the point of exclusion just yet?...=/
Why would you purposely ignore something that's bound to happen? We all see it coming. WHM can't survive off pure heals in a game where others healers match that healing level just as good, if not better, while offering more to the raid.
Why sweep this under the rug and pretend it's OK until WHM is excluded from PF and isn't allowed to join savage? I mean hell, the later part is already taking place.

Yet YOU have a low opinion of US because we aren't going to sit on our thumbs and not do anything until our job is destroyed. Lol OK.

[PotatoTree]

Seems like it will just be the vanilla healer. Most boring animations, and most boring skills. However, since new healers would probably flock to WHM first they probably want to keep it boring and simple so they aren't overwhelmed. Just sit and heal basically, until the healer gets good enough to micro a fairy or deal with cards...

[LunaFaye]

It reminds me of 2.x all over again. Do we all remember those times as the pf and static recruitment looked like this? (SCH/SCH). For me personally, since I don't main healer anymore, all I can say is, at least I do get butterflies and that's all that matters to me, but I do hope for the people that actually get enjoyment out of the whm, that someone looks into that and will make some changes, if it turns out as bad as it currently looks like. I know how it feels when you main something and love playing it, and then someone breaks it, thinking it's better for the balance or whatever reason and you'll find yourself having to switch to a other job, that you don't enjoy very much.