I'm enjoying the new WHM >,>

[SecretCrowds]

The problem which many people surfaced was about the design.


First off is the lily system. Cooldown reduction sounds great on paper but not practically. That's why AST always say the Spear card is useless. Put it this way. You reduce your tetragrammaton cooldown from 60 seconds to 48 seconds. Now, as a healer, you aren't going to use it once it goes off cd. You are only going to use it when you really need to. Most likely, you will end up using it way after the cooldown has ended. Same with asylum and assize.

And the confession system. It just plain sucks.

Finally will be the role abilities. They take the essential abilities from our core pool of abilities and make them "optional".

Don't get me wrong. WHM definitely is not struggling to heal. It's the design that people are mad about. The AST changes actually build up on their weaknesses. They now have a way to use "redundant cards", such as the aforementioned Spear, instead of outright discarding them. The WHM changes seem half-assed in comparison. It's like they design WHM for PvP first and realised it was great in PvP and then transposed it to PvE without much thought.

[Hyperia]

Whm has great raid utility, it's called keeping everybody alive in almost any situation, mistakes included. Do they boost dps? Yep! I have people on my raid team that are so comfortable with my healing output that they can ignore certain mechanics. So my WHM utility is confidence, my team doesn't worry about staying alive so they can focus on their dps or trying to kill our raid leader with mechanics. I say try because I can usually keep them alive through most of it, but not all.

[Neophyte]

Most likely, you will end up using it way after the cooldown has ended. Same with [...] assize.

Wait, what?

To elaborate: The reason why AST say spear is not that good, is because it is not that good compared with a Balance or an Arrow.
If AST would have a unique CD reduction on oGCD not in competition with other cards nobody would say that this ability is bad.

A CD reduction on a 10% mp regen and 300 pot oGCD damage is awesome.

[Colt47]

WHM got a lot of flak from youtubers reviewing the Stormblood changes since so many of their original abilities got pushed into the cross job skill selection. The job is still incredibly viable and to be frank, the end game hardcore raiding scene in this game is nowhere near as strong or pushed as it was in World of Warcraft, so even if the class "loses out to astrologian", this is only going to matter to people doing aggressive progression racing for some kind of raid completion competition. The job that perplexes me is the Paladin changes, as they made the Sheltron ability cost energy and thereby make the paladin player have to check the energy meter for an ability that is largely arbitrary most of the time and used to help with mana recovery during mass AOE taunt spamming. Also the swapping of the dps skill being on the mana recovery combo tree will throw returning players off for a while, as well as the loss of bloodbath as a skill to combo with other damage boosting abilities.

I have yet to take any class to 70 since I'm too busy gauging what classes to play in the new game right now, as they simplified both other tanking jobs and those may be more interesting to play than paladin. WHM I haven't gotten the chance to get back into yet as I just got done with RDM leveling over the week via POTD hell.

[Fawkes]

30s recast is nothing considering it's free.

This is probably the main reason I'm angry about white mage. I won't be happy unless they revert it back to level 34 and give us an actual new spell at 66.

[Tint]

WHM does feel very fluid... but it's mostly the same as 3.0. Just with some key things like Thin Air for mass holy spam, reduced Assize CD, etc. I do mislike Largesse's 90s CD, making it less available for mechanics that line up on a minutely cycle.

after playing DRK for over 1 year and expiriencing what they did with them in 4.0 i switched back to WHM and am very lucky they are mostly still the same as in 3.0 ^^

DRK looked good on paper, but playing DRK is no fun anymore.
WHM looked bad on paper, but playing WHM is more fun than ever ^^

[basketofseals]

The problem which many people surfaced was about the design.

First off is the lily system. Cooldown reduction sounds great on paper but not practically. That's why AST always say the Spear card is useless. Put it this way. You reduce your tetragrammaton cooldown from 60 seconds to 48 seconds. Now, as a healer, you aren't going to use it once it goes off cd. You are only going to use it when you really need to. Most likely, you will end up using it way after the cooldown has ended. Same with asylum and assize.

And the confession system. It just plain sucks.

Finally will be the role abilities. They take the essential abilities from our core pool of abilities and make them "optional".

Don't get me wrong. WHM definitely is not struggling to heal. It's the design that people are mad about. The AST changes actually build up on their weaknesses. They now have a way to use "redundant cards", such as the aforementioned Spear, instead of outright discarding them. The WHM changes seem half-assed in comparison. It's like they design WHM for PvP first and realised it was great in PvP and then transposed it to PvE without much thought.

Correct me if I'm doing this wrong, but unless I know a fight specifically calls for heavy healing, of which there are few, I'm going to blow that CD as soon as possible to maximize damage uptime.

Also I'm loving WHM. I don't really understand why you think they designed WHM for PvP when PvP is such an afterthought. We're being too caught up in looking at design or thinking about "losing" abilities to role actions. We need to focus on the game in front of us and see how WHM plays out, and in my opinion it plays out quite well. Secrets of the Lily 2 is absolute dumpster tier and Plenary Indulgence is extremely niche, but let's remember that Dissipation didn't make SCH the worst healer in HW.

[ErryK]

This is probably the main reason I'm angry about white mage. I won't be happy unless they revert it back to level 34 and give us an actual new spell at 66.

Just play AST.

[KisaiTenshi]

Nothing really needs to be fixed for WHM in terms of skills present, what needs to be fixed is the removal of unique skills into the role system that came entirely at WHM's expense.

To copy something that I posted in another thread, the role system seems to imply that Esuna and Protect are optional.


Like give Esuna back to WHM, there was no need to pull it off, give Scholar Leeches back and put it at the same level as Esuna, and give Astrologian back Exalted Detriment. These are essential skills, and putting them on the Role system just told players it's optional. Give 15% Protect back to WHM, don't give Scholar or Astrologian "Protect" give them something else that has the same idea with a twist. eg Astrologian could have something like "Nocturnal Moonlight" (Nocturnal Sect) or "Diurnal Sunlight" which either does the 15% protect effect or a 10% effect and a 5% damage boost. Scholar could have "Fay Glow" or something that if Eos or Selene is summoned, the 15% protect effect applies to Eos and the damage speed applies to Selene (basically Fey Wind always active with Protect at 10%.)

Those two are the skills that I think healers are most upset with anyway. The other skills do feel optional. Lucid Dreaming, Swiftcast and Largesse feel necessary, but largely aren't if you aren't just spamming skills because the oGCD is available. Lucid Dreaming (formerly Shroud of Saints/Luminiferous Aether) and Largesse (Formerly Divine Seal) were both WHM abilities before, so it feels like these were stolen from WHM, while AST only gave up one, and Scholar gave up none.


What WHM is missing is some choice. They are purely healing. AST has a choice between heals, regens and shields, while Scholar has a choice between heals, and shields. WHM is basically heal or heal+regen. They stack with AST or other WHM's. Scholar/AST shields do not stack on each other. So a SCH+SCH or two AST's who select Nocturnal Sect actually impose a penalty on their party. This is why WHM still needed Stone Skin, though it probably should have been implemented like Aspected Benefic, where you either cast Regen or Stone Skin instantly via the same skill, not both. Divine Benison seems like a slap in the face. Maybe re-design SS so SS can't stack with Nocturnal Sect/Galvanize, but Divine Benison can.

[Fawkes]

If you can't figure out how to use Divine Benison properly yet, then that's a you problem.

It has nothing to do with how to use it. If they wanted to change how stoneskin worked they should have changed stoneskin. Deleting stoneskin and giving us a "new" spell that does the same thing is why I'm mad.

Just play AST.

I am.