Thread: In defense of WHM 4.0

It seems like people are looking for a change to the White Mage's playstyle rather than a buff to make it's current style more viable. The White Mage has always been a pure healer. Scholar always had more utility. And then Astrologian as well when 3.0 arrived. This makes me wonder why people insist on committing to White Mage if they prefer a more utility based healing style. Why not simply main AST rather than transform the WHM into an AST? I'd rather there be distinct styles within healing, rather than having SE streamline everything for an easy answer to balance issues.

In my opinion, the White Mage should be buffed in a way that properly compensates for it's lack of utility, not reworked into another utility healer. Whether or not SE accomplished this is yet to be seen. We don't have much information about the actual content of Stormblood calls for or it's healing and damage formulas.

As far as cross-role skill slots go, the only thing I used regularly on WHM was Swiftcast and Eye for an eye. The rest was just filler that wouldn't be missed. Using those slots to retain a few skills doesn't bother me, plus it's not just the WHM losing skills to cross-role. (Don't believe the hype.)

-AST loses it's mp refresh skill and it's divine seal counterpart (Synastry's 20% heal increase over 20 seconds is GONE).

-Stoneskin is removed from the game, but the other healers could cross-class it anyway. It was never a WHM exclusive.

-Stoneskin II was exclusive to WHM, but it can't be used in battle anyway. The only way to cast it regularly is to burn your Swiftcast between pulls. In 8 man raids and primal fights, the move is completely negligible.

-Esuna is the biggest loss in my opinion, but every healer had it and now has to spend a cross-role point into getting it back. It's a loss for everyone, not just WHM.

-Scholar doesn't really lose much, but they got a significant damage nerf, wherein Bane does less damage as it spreads, similar to Holy and Gravity.


To me, it looks like WHM was buffed, yet not reworked into a different kind of healer and people were expecting a different kind of White Mage.

-Assize has a potency of 300. It now does its full damage and full healing simultaneously. Combine this with the recast buffs from Secret of the Lillies I and II and your looking at an extremely strong healer for dealing with packs of mobs.

-Stone IV has a potency of 260. Fire IV has a potency of 280. That's an extremely strong standard attack ability for a healer. You don't even need Enochian to cast .

-Benediction recast time was decreased from 300 to 180. This along with Assize,
Tetragrammaton and Plenary Indulgence means that the White Mage has a lot of panic-button, instant cast healing. Two of them are aoe/multi-target instant cast heals.

-I think stacks of confession would be utilized mainly by bosses/mechanics that randomly or sequentially target individual teammates. In these fights, you'll have plenty reason to cast cure 1/2 on people other than the tank, thereby giving them stacks of confession.

It's not just the playstyle:

* AST's mp regen/heal buff aren't gone, it's just crossclass now. There's a cost but compared to the costs WHM faces, they're minor.
* AST now gets 15% buff in both stances, making its heals flat out higher potency than all WHM counterparts, while costing less MP. Aspected Benefic also received a base potency buff.
* Divine Seal was nerfed pretty hard, and this was a significant part of the WHM kit. 20% instead of 30%, and the cooldown is longer. And now it eats a crossclass slot, yes.
* Example crossclass setup for WHM: protect, esuna, shroud, divine seal, swiftcast. Well, their crossclass equivalents. This is just to keep what WHM has now, but you're locked out of new toys like Rescue. You can swap some of these situationally, but all in all, SCH and AST gain the most from this new system, while WHM loses a fair bit.

And that's basically the core problem. SCH and AST got the most love, but were already meta. Oh WHM has instant heals? ...Then you didn't really look at the new AST stuff, did you? And PI requires you to spam cure/cure II, which means you aren't DPSing. SCH's damage nerf is only to AoE, but they received significant buffs to single target (more relevant in the raid scene). And so on.

Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

You're not accounting for Astral Fire III (80% increase). So Fire IV is actually 518 potency.

Lol, you got me on that one. Had a brain fart and forgot about the astral fire buff. I still believe it's the strongest single target healer attack without a significant recast timer.

Earthly Star is an instant 900 potency AoE, 30y range heal (Medica is only 25y) and is 200 damage potency. Literally better.

Earthly Star isn't totally instant for that potency. You have to wait 10 seconds for the 200/900 potency explosion. If you reactivate the ability earlier than that, you'll get a weaker 150/675 potency. On the damage end, the instant Earthly Star is only half of what Assize does, whereas the full 10 second version is still weaker by 100 potency. It's inferior for damage, full-stop. The healing aspect is largely improved over Assize. While the WHM doesn't have a single heal that strong, it has more healing cooldowns available to burn instead. I think the WHM has more baskets, but still a similar number of eggs. (Hopefully, when the scores can be tallied for content. Also, Assize still has an MP refresh as a bonus.)

Both Sects have +15% healing potency making AST's basic cures stronger than WHMs. Additionally, Nocturnal Sect gives a 300% shield bonus to their already potent Aspected Benefit, making it stronger than a SCH's crit Adlo.

This is actually what's most concerning to me, if it makes it into the final game. It all depends on whether the sheer number of healing options and instant cast cooldowns available to the WHM are enough to rival a 15% potency increase. AST would have higher potency heals, but it also has fewer strong instant heal options. We can't really know the answer until we get our hands on the final product.

I'm not saying that WHM won't end up being underpowered. I just don't think it's a guaranteed outcome based on the information we have. I doubt anyone has done all of the math and included all of the variables from Stromblood's actual group content.