White Mage - an analysis on the upcoming meta

[D00meriksen]

Now, that the commotion regarding the changes has calmed down a bit, I'd like to look at the impact of the new mechanics on White Mage.

Confession's impact on single target throughput

I've seen some players complain about White Mage's potency on their base line heals compared to Astrologian, so I'd like to give some insight as to why that's not a problem.

Confession is simplified a 400 potency single target heal on a 15 second cooldown per target. Cure's baseline healing got buffed to 450 potency and Cure II got buffed to 700 potency.

Within 15 seconds, you can cast 6 Cures/Cure IIs, which amount to a total of 2700p/4200p respectively. We can expect 1 Confession stack on the first 5 Cures and another 0.2 stacks on the 6th cast.

1 Confession stack is worth 400 potency, while the 2 stacks are worth 500. That means, if we spam Cures/Cure IIs, we get 400 + 0.2 * 100 = 420 bonus healing for free every 15 seconds.

Now let's calculate the impact on a single Cure/Cure II, because we are not actually going to be spamming these spells non-stop: 3120p/4620p over 6 casts, which amounts to 520p/770p respectively.

So our spammable Cure has 520p now, making it stronger than AST's baseline heal.

Mana Management
The next complaint I've seen a lot is that Astrologian and Scholar gain access to our Shroud of Saints, while we do not get anything from them in return. Let's dispel that one as well.

Scholars have less mana sustain on Aetherflow, so they probably need to cross-class the ability as well as Astrologians who also lost their own refresh. That means that all healers have to take the mana talent, which they didn't need to do before. There's no imbalance here.

Now let's look at Assize and Thin Air, which are going to be White Mage's baseline mana tools.

Assize's cooldown got buffed to 60s down from 90s. The cooldown also gets passively reduced further by Cure/Cure II's critical heals and occassionally by the rather underwhelming Lily mechanic. If you are single-target healing, I can see Assize being on like a 45s cooldown compared to before. Even if you're dps'ing it's buffed, because the base cooldown went down.

Then there's Thin Air. The value of this spell is insane. Since it lasts only 12 seconds, we should combine it with Presence of Mind to get another full cast and maybe another Regen for free. In dungeons you can now spam Holy like there's no tomorrow and you still have the other mana tools to continue spamming while it's on cooldown.

Overall it sure looks like White Mages can afford to dps without it being punishing on their mana in Stormblood.

DPS
White Mages are basically getting a strength that Scholar was known for, which is sustained multi-target damage.

They now have two DoTs just like Scholar, but Aero III is actually AoE, which means, they can use Aero III into Holy spam on huge pulls. Scholars only have Shadowflare (60s cooldown instead of 30s) and nerfed potencies on their dot spread.

I'd even expect nerfs on Aero III somewhere down the line, because it's basically a 370p AoE spell that is not reduced beyond the first target.

Healer niches
All of that makes me think that White Mage's are going to be the strongest choice for dungeoneering, bringing strong sustained single-target healing, emergency cooldowns, aoe damage and cc to the table.

Scholars bring their usual damage reduction abilities and a strong tank cooldown with the new Faerie Gauge. In content that requires little to no healing, they still have their strong passive healing and can spend almost all of their GCDs on damage.

Astrologians are getting an emergency healing cooldown that's going to be great for Diurnal sect. Diurnal seems like the best healer for AoE healing, but the class still suffers from their defensive cards being unreliable due to the draw mechanic. Single target they can only compete with heavy sustained damage through the use of the cross-class Divine Seal. Nocturnal sect doesn't seem as good as taking a Scholar still, because they lack the big recovery tools and damage reductions.

Predicted impacts on the meta for Stormblood
I think Whitemages and Astrologians will be the strongest healers in raid content and I don't even think that Astro will go for Nocturnal sect either.

Divine Seal just produces insane value with Regen-like effects and Diurnal Astro will be no exception here. It also doesn't seem to work with shields.

Scholars' niche of bringing lots of damage reduction doesn't seem very useful, when you can just bring more casters, who are all receiving a raid cooldown that reduces magic damage.

[Sanghelios]

Theres no chance for whm being in meta.

[Sebazy]

Theres no chance for whm being in meta.

And thankfully you are wrong. It's a pretty safe assumption that plenty of abilities and values are yet to be tuned and tweaked. There's also the huge unknown that is exactly what the upcoming raid tier is going to bring. As things stand, it's most likely to either be AST/SCH or WHM/AST but you never know.

[Ceasaria]

When you see the awesome buff to AST shield, you can't think of a bad move from SE.
They want literally AST (noct) replace SCH (with fairy nerf).
WHM is still very strong (even with the Lily ~failed, which is actually a pure bonus as Freecure).
If Lily mecanics is buffed, be sure WHM will have his spot for sure and we will assist to WHM / AST (noct) compo.

PS : Anyways, if Chain Stratagem multiply your critical hit (as demonstrated by some players : 20% x 20% = 25%), than Scholar is already at the 3rd healer position.

There's also the huge unknown that is exactly what the upcoming raid tier is going to bring.

Good point to take into account.

[Adventica6]

Nobody is going to bring Whm as it stands, I know I won't and my friends won't either.

In ffxi drg was never invited because they sucked, they got buffed and guess what, still auto declined and blocked, for 10+ years.

In this game it's going to be the same for Whm, we don't need medica anymore Astro has better and has many useful buffs. It's really not that hard to understand, the playerbase makes the meta as a whole, your input is like a grain of sand.

[Sebazy]

It's really not that hard to understand, the playerbase makes the meta as a whole, your input is like a grain of sand.

Not really, the teams chasing world progression rankings make the meta, that filters down to the masses where a significant portion of the player base chooses to follow it often rather mindlessly.

[Gemina]

Nobody is going to bring Whm as it stands, I know I won't and my friends won't either.

This meta reminds me of a narrow minded sorority that only allows in certain people, and has a bunch of strict rules to stay in it. It's no wonder it doesn't interest me. And supposedly the community wishes more players would participate in endgame? All evidence to the contrary.

[Kacho_Nacho]

Now, that the commotion regarding the changes has calmed down a bit, I'd like to look at the impact of the new mechanics on White Mage.

Confession's impact on single target throughput

*snippity snip*

It is good to see someone look at the Stormblood White Mage with open eyes. It's tiresome to see all the hysteria about the changes. While I'm still scratching my head, because I don't see the designer's vision of the job, it's good to know we aren't DOA.

[IndoX]

Not really, the teams chasing world progression rankings make the meta, that filters down to the masses where a significant portion of the player base chooses to follow it often rather mindlessly.

Most word first progression also use white mages in heavensward. That didn't change that white mage wasn't part of the meta.

White mages always had more bursty AoE dps compared to all the healers. They were arguably the best healer for speed running dungeons. White mage becomes more powerful the less amount of people they have to heal while the other two healers scale with more people on a group.

But the amount of white mage personal dps doesn't make up for +10% group damage or +20% crit chance that AST and SCH bring.

[Sebazy]

Most word first progression also use white mages in heavensward. That didn't change that white mage wasn't part of the meta.

Not sure what you're getting at, things have changed as HW's raid tiers (and the associated class buffs each patch) have progressed. In case you didn't follow the raid scene throughout HW:

For 3.0 and Gordias, the Meta was firmly WHM/SCH due to AST being woefully undertuned for savage. The most notable server progression capable team I saw running AST/SCH hit a wall with A3S and sadly melted down before the leader was willing to accept defeat and switch to WHM to get the job done.

AST was fixed by 3.2 and you saw a reasonable spread of all 3 healers. AST still had a bit of a stigma at this point and the earliest kills were still typically WHM/SCH, but this steadily faded away as the months went by and average iLVLs went up. The rise of logs and rankings saw AST's popularity start rising with it. Many progression healers including myself played both AST and WHM on a turn by turn basis with SCH still remaining the constant here.

Finally, Creator gave us the meta we have now due to the combination of it being the easiest raid tier this game has had yet, coupled with AST getting some very potent buffs. Needless to say, this time round the majority of world first progression teams were running AST/SCH, Elysium were the main ones that bucked the trend but even they promptly switched to AST/SCH after the first kill.

Thus WHM fell out of the meta. Nothing in it's kit offered much value in Creator and frankly, the bulk of this tier really felt like it was tuned around an AST/SCH team's cooldowns.

This meta reminds me of a narrow minded sorority that only allows in certain people, and has a bunch of strict rules to stay in it. It's no wonder it doesn't interest me. And supposedly the community wishes more players would participate in endgame? All evidence to the contrary.

Ironically and perhaps fortunately, a rather large proportion of the people shouting these views have somewhere between very little and no savage/coil experience. As your quote demonstrates, it almost seems that the more extreme their views, the less raid capable or experienced they actually are. It's interesting to have a browse over some of these people's achievements, mounts and logs.

I can promise you first hand that the actual people preparing to chase progression rankings are much more open minded and flexible. Whilst these forums do a decent job of reflecting the general feeling amongst the community at large, views can get a little OTT and thus it's always worthwhile taking such comments with a pinch of salt.