Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Feidam]

Not exactly. Taking an underpowered class is like losing several ilevels in content. It's not some "mentality" or some conspiracy. Imagine doing content where the entire raid is at the min ilevel. Not you take an underpowered class. In the case of a healer, given what ast is capable of, it's like the entire raid is now below the min ilevel.

Whm are not underpowered. They are perfectly capable of being used to complete content and can meet the necessary checks for their class. Period. The player base has decided that others are better because they can clear faster with them. The insane buff to the balance card of the astrologian is the offending item. If astrologians could not buff a group to the level they do currently this would be a non issue. Simple tweaks to astrologian buffs could easily pull them out of the rafters. Whm's current identity is just not one that western players are happy with.

Edit. Think about it. If astrologian buffs stacked scholars would be pushed to the wayside as well. That pretty much shows where the problem is located.

[LadyKairi]

snip

Then you're obviously not reading what I was, because they never said people were ignorant, they were being called ignorant by others. Their post was related to the topic. You people are talking about what you think is wrong with whm and what it needs to be meta rather than just viable. They stated their opinion on the matter. I don't understand what you're missing. No one is saying whm needs an overhaul? Then you're not reading what people are saying, because I've seen it lol.

[Yorumi]

Whm are not underpowered. They are perfectly capable of being used to complete content and can meet the necessary checks for their class. Period. The player base has decided that others are better because they can clear faster with them.

People will always look to what best helps them complete their content. If you look at it another way a sch or ast is raising the ilvl of all characters in the party, a whm doesn't. It's not speedrunning it's the fact that a comp with a whm is handicapped compared to a comp with schs and ast. Saying you can technically do something is a cop out.

Ultimately though, it doesn't matter at all why an imbalance exists, what matters is that it does.

[Feidam]

People will always look to what best helps them complete their content. If you look at it another way a sch or ast is raising the ilvl of all characters in the party, a whm doesn't. It's not speedrunning it's the fact that a comp with a whm is handicapped compared to a comp with schs and ast. Saying you can technically do something is a cop out.

Ultimately though, it doesn't matter at all why an imbalance exists, what matters is that it does.

An imbalance that can be corrected with number tuning instead of bring other classes up to the same level which people seem to deem as overpowered. And no stating a white Mage can meet the cutoffs set forth by the developers and complete content is not a cop out. It just does not fit with your current narrative of the whm needing buffs through gaining extra utility to equal something that is above where it should be.

[Yorumi]

Then you're obviously not reading what I was, because they never said people were ignorant, they were being called ignorant by others. Their post was related to the topic. You people are talking about what you think is wrong with whm and what it needs to be meta rather than just viable. They stated their opinion on the matter. I don't understand what you're missing. No one is saying whm needs an overhaul? Then you're not reading what people are saying, because I've seen it lol.

The poster quoted someone and immediately started with the circle of ignorance. Whether you name someone specifically or not saying that is calling someone ignorant. Then proceeds to call people "wannabes" for not being in some arbitrary made up percent. Not to mention the first post calling people sheep for again not being in this made up arbitrary percent. Oh and then speaking of the suggestion of an overhaul I said: "If it has been suggested it's certainly not a popular or common suggestion." So maybe before you start accusing people of not reading you should yourself make sure you carefully read posts.

An imbalance that can be corrected with number tuning instead of bring other classes up to the same level which people seem to deem as overpowered. And no stating a white Mage can meet the cutoffs set forth by the developers and complete content is not a cop out. It just does not fit with your current narrative of the whm needing buffs through gaining extra utility to equal something that is above where it should be.

Well of course you could take away all buffs from ast and sch. But that's a bit silly. Also balance does not mean purely "can complete content" balance means two equal forces. This doesn't mean all skills are just renamed versions of the same thing, but it means when measured the weight of the contribution of each healer should be equal.

[Xylas]

I think White Mages just don't feel unique from the others anymore. I could see their kit getting taken and given to the rest of the archetype feeling discouraging. Again, I don't play a White Mage myself, but I can understand the frustration of feeling like you're getting nothing while others are getting more.

[Sebazy]

I just want them to be competitive. Right now, they offer absolutely nothing completely unique to them like both other healers do.

Assize, Benediction (And all the amusing cooldown/animation delay quirks it brings compared to Tetra/ED/Lustrate), Cure 3, Aero III, Fluid Aura.

I feel like you are being blinded by your own opinion at times =(

I really do hope that SE don't nerf Assize though, that'd just be sad =/

[Feidam]

Well of course you could take away all buffs from ast and sch. But that's a bit silly. Also balance does not mean purely "can complete content" balance means two equal forces. This doesn't mean all skills are just renamed versions of the same thing, but it means when measured the weight of the contribution of each healer should be equal.

Wow. I never said remove the buffs from anyone. It does not have to be an all or none response. Completely removing the buffs is a bit over board. Also, thanks for the vocabulary lesson.

my personal hope is that the white mage would get more assize style abilities that dps and heal simultaneously. granted assize will probably take a bit of nerf now that the cleric stance isn't a thing anymore. It still would give the whitemage an interesting play style imo while doing two things at once.

[Feidam]

I think White Mages just don't feel unique from the others anymore. I could see their kit getting taken and given to the rest of the archetype feeling discouraging. Again, I don't play a White Mage myself, but I can understand the frustration of feeling like you're getting nothing while others are getting more.

I agree with this sentiment and would agree more if we knew what the other healers were giving up along with what else the whm is gaining. We just do not have that info currently.

[javid]

A better home for this post...

HEALING

-Healing involved instant heals (cure, benefic, physick)
-Regen heals (regen, aspect benefic, Whipering dawn/embrace**)
-Shield heals (stoneskin, aspect benefic, adlo)

The there version of healing listed above are the COMPLETE aspect of HEALING. This can possible be the true meaning of "pure" healer. In our Current system only SCH (the king!) and AST (the prince) are effectively PURE healers, meeting all the requirements (instant heals, regens, and shields). This is the first issue WHM CURRENTLY has. EVEN THOUGH WHM has the strongest instant heals, and the strongest regens; b/c they lack sufficient shield healing, they're not a "pure healer" by the definition I listed.

MITIGATION

Now lets go into mitigation
Technically Shields can be effectively counted as mitigation, but since the system treats shields as additional HP, we'll keep shields in the Healing category. So mitigation consist of utilities that proactively reduce inc dmg (virus, disable, e4e, fey conv, soil, CU, etc). In the mitigation section WHM only has access to a physical version of virus (in a game with extremely few physical aoe's) and a 3min version of Sch's 2min E4E (that can also, along with virus, be cross classed by any other mage but ast). So here again!! WHM has effectively extremely little proactive mitigation utilities.

So not only is WHM NOT effectively a PURE healer; it's also not a hybrid of pure and mitigation. THIS IS WHY given the CURRENT game content WHM suffers in raid content.


HOPE FOR THE FUTURE...

Moving forward into the new SB world; they can make WHM into a PURE healer (one with best instant cures, best regens, and best shields) but give it no proactive mitigation utilities (like disable, virus, [i know they still have e4e but SE said it's different now...], fey conv, etc).

Likewise they can make AST's and SCH's PURE healing facilitate a role subordinate to WHM's in the category of PURE healing (instant heals, regens, shields) YET keep their mitigation utilities sufficient enough to clear content.

Philosophically, content can be designed around these concepts of PURE & hybrid; but practically the issue will be balance; how do you make WHM superior healing not displace AST/SCH in a given content? How do you make ast/sch hybrid (pure/utilities) not displace WHM in a given content?

Edit

Just spit balling.

Imagine that job actions we saw of WHM was an ability that changed all of whm cures excess healing into HP extension (effectively a shield more technically a semi "thrill of battle"). For example image a tank has a max HP pool of 10k, then whm uses a utility that allows his 300 HP cure to now extend the tanks Max hp up to 13k if the tank is healed at max HP while the skill is active. this would allow for less overhealing (while skill is active). If this same 10k max tank had only 7k hp of his max 10k and received that same skill activated cure for 300 HP it would not gain the effect of HP extension (this would make the skill something MOSTLY beneficial after the person is topped off but still useful when a cure/aoe cure will have some excess). Also the benefit of HP extension would dissipate upon receiving dmg equal to the overheal, so that means you could reapply an additional HP extension right after the previous for as long as the WHM utililty is active!! An utility like this would not displace succor and both would be able to stack!!!