Thread: My thoughts on 4.0 WHM

Actually yea, another thread. However i would like to tell my thoughts on each role/job skill whm will get. There might be some flaws and wrong things since its only based on the informations i have so far. I try to not compare whm with the other two healers. Just comparing whm we have now with the one we will get.

Lets begin with the Role Actions:

My thoughts: Me personal i like the stance dance we have now. However mostly because i kind of grew up with it. Now with the changes to cleric stance, it becomes a slight dps buff, but is not mandatory. Those who want to get highest dps numbers will pick it, everyone else is fine without it. However, keep in mind that healers who still wont contribute any dps will be most likely much more not acceptable than it was till now. Choosed this skill for my upcomming role bar.


My thoughts: Didnt knew what this skill is doing till today. Basically this skill is half as good as former Stone 1. Pretty lame skill and is only needed in highly situational scenarios such as A6s to lower the movement speed of certain orbs. Wont pick this one.


My thoughts: Well, Protect. Take it. However i have a minor concern with this one. Healers can easily make use of more than the 5 available role bar slots. Wich then means that only one healer picks protect. While isnt really a problem, it probably gets annoyed to discuss who takes what after youve done the 100th pf group. Also in that scenario if the healer with protect dies you cant cast it on him after he ressed and he would have to do it on his own. So how i see it, Protect surely would have been better as a set skill every healer has in their kit. I pick this one for my bar.


My thoughts: Literally same as Protect, just more situational and for this one, yea, only one healer needs it. Regardless i also think it should be just in every healers toolkit and not role bar. I pretty much pick this anyway.


My thoughts: Must have of course. Its the new Shroud of Saints just lasts 6 seconds longer for some extra ticks. I see this one as a buff/improvement for whitemages.
I pick this one.


My thoughts: Also another must have for everyone who does some harder content. Not mandatory in only dungeon runs or even 24 man raids to an degree. I pick this one.


My thoughts: Useful, but not ultimatively mandatory. Can be used as replacement for protects spot on the bar for example. Me personal i wont take it probably.


My thoughts: Here we come now to the problem of only having 5 slots available. We need to sacrifice skills that are useful and that we had all at the same time. Its the same as Divine Seal now, just only 20% buff (I might be wrong but i think some of whms normal healing skills are getting a slight buff so its techncially still 30% for whm). I see this as a quite mandatory role buff more for main healers than for off healers.


My thoughts: Just a filler to get 10 available options for role bars. Useless and wont be picked. Due to the new additional effects against states its getting more use in pvp.


My thoughts: Only new skill, highly situational and only really useable in pre mades to make the best use of it. I wont pick this one because i think i can make more use of the other skills than of this one.

So thats it for the role actions. While the concept of role actions sounds good to me, i dislike the fact that most of those are so mandatory that you wont have much choice to pick your favorites that may fit your playstyle better. Whitemage in particular has access to 9 out of 10 right now at the same time, while being limited to 5 with the expansion.

Now lets head on to the actual new WHM skills alongside the main trait they will get.


My thoughts: Kind of expected something like this. While decreasing a cooldown sounds good, i can see quite a few flaws comming with this one. Okay first, lets do some math. A lily is generated at a 20% chance each time you use cure 1 or 2. That means, to get 3 lilies, you have to cast 15 cures and thats already probably the biggest flaw. 15 cures taking roughly 45 seconds (With little downtime in between and not taking other buffs in mind). So, every 45 seconds a full stack of lilies you say? Surely possible, not highly dumb and inefficent. There wont be any scenario where you have to cast +-15 cures in a row. It burns your mana, lowers your dps and is lame. Lets get closer to reality then and taking the average good whm in mind. Since the good whm is not spamming cure like an idiot and also dpses a decent amount alongside using hots for smart tank heals you can increase the average time to get 3 stacks easily to 90 or 120 seconds or even more depending on content (Easy content like Dungeons will become total lily killers really). I would assume in harder content it will be 70-90 seconds for 3 stacks but that is really depending on solo/double heal and the fight itself. Regardless and taking easier content in mind, that is a insane long time for just a healing cooldown reduction of some seconds. Also, the next flaw. You will see yourself wasting the cooldown reduction on either Tetragrammaton or Divine Benison more often than you probably like to. Both of them have a short cooldown and so everytime you use them you burn your lilies stack, making the lowest possible use out of the reduction mechanic. And you will do this often, because the other listed skills for the lilies mechanic have quite long cooldowns or are more situational than either tetra or divine benison). In dungeons, when you use your tetragrammaton to just quickly heal the tank once a minute and contribute with dps, you will burn your lily (in case you will ever really see much lilies in a dungeon) into a 4% shorter cooldown for the next tetragrammaton, wich sadly enough even makes it worse since the cooldown gets shorter. So how i see it, the main whm trait is not really well done, dpsing devalues it even more and in particular in easier content where you just spam holy all day long while giving the tank a tetra or cure once every minute you will barely make use of it. It would have been so much better if the lilies would lower your overall cast time for all abilities because that would be a reasonable buff towards whitemage to get closer to ast/sch. With decreasing only healing cds and the flaws ive listed i cant see this main whm trait being overall useful. It more feels like they had to give whm some kind of role trait because all others got one too.


My thoughts: This is a straight buff for whm. Let it be for free res cost, Holy spam or just when you just got ressed and no mp. Very useful and a good thing alltogether.


My thoughts: While it sounds nice, this is a complete joke to be honest. Just take in mind they took away your Stoneskin, pretty much renamed it and gave it back to you as a job skill. Its 5% stronger and instant but on 60 seconds cooldown. I see it as slight improvement against stoneskin due to its instant cast but overall really disappointed that this seems to be the "utility" whitemages will get.


My thoughts: Also sounds great, however comes with major flaws. Again a low chance of 20% per cure1/2 to get one confession stack on one target. That also means we are talking about 15 casts on average to get 3 stacks. Confession only lasts for 30 seconds, that means you need to cast 5 cure 1/2 per half a minute on average to generate a stack and not letting it fall of. Here comes a problem already. The fact that it can fall of makes the extra potency very unreliable, wich is bad. Another huge flaw comes up if you think about wich person gets your cure1/2s. Right! The main tank and no other. That means only main tank will get your confession stacks and not the party. So lets say you healed your main tank to 3 stacks of confession. He will be the only one who gets the 200 extra potency and do you really thing the main tank with all his super high defense values really gives a shit/is in bare need of that extra unrealiable extra potency?

Stone IV:
My thoughts: Stone 3 just with 260 potency this time. Pretty nice. My personal feeling is quite an odd animation, "just another stone thingy" and wont help whitemage much. But yea, actually not bad but i would just have liked to see another element this time for raw single target damage, let it be water/light or wind.

Missing the lvl68 spell so far it seems but will add that later.

Overall thoughts as WHM main:
Cant really say how whm gonna fit next to ast/sch since i havent took a deeper look at their new stuff but since they wont get crazy nerfs most likely and whm got some cross class/role bar nerfs alongside no real utility (In case the lvl68 is utility i cant really see how a single thing can cover so much of the issues) and pretty flawed skills (Trait & lvl 70 one). Right now, yea unfortunately pretty unhappy with the changes like most other whitemages on this board it seems. However i am not salty/ranting about it. I knew when they said whm is a pure healer that it will be the last nail on that coffin pretty much. And as long as whm stays pure healer with little to no utility then its quite clear that whm will never get into the meta.

What are your thoughts on this?

Originally Posted by AlphaSonic

It actually makes Benefic and Benefic II stronger than the WHM Cure and Cure II even if they have higher potency.

Correct. Cure II was buffed to 700 potency. Benefic II's stanced potency is 747.5. Benefic II also still costs less MP than cure II.

Originally Posted by Skyrior

Very good write-up.

I'm very upset today. I really wanted to give WHM a shot again but I had zero hopes after Yoshi P said he wants WHM to continue being a pure healer and now my fears are confirmed.

Honestly a pure healer could have a place, like PLD, in progression... if it was actually a strong healer. But... It's even more definitively weaker than AST than before, at the one thing WHM is supposed to be good at.

Originally Posted by Yorumi

What is the point of whm anymore? Do they believe the entire job is defined by cure III alone?

AST has a heal that's nearly as powerful as 2 Cure IIIs now.

Just to note, the Diurnal Sect buff is roughly in line with the extra 50 potency WHM have gotten on Cure and Cure II as well as the 10 potency advantage WHMs have on Regen. SCH got a potency buff to Embrace as well.