Thread: WHM 5.0 Discussion

Originally Posted by guardin

Try them first because based off the media tour and the press, 95% of them say healers are better than ever.

Could you provide a link to your source for this? Thanks <3

I didn't go through all 9 pages, so if I touch on stuff that's already been said that's why. Here are my problems with the 5.0 white mage.

1) Afflatus Misery: 900 potency, but 4 global cooldowns. If the lily heal was actually off the global cooldown, this might actually be useful. As is, it's a DPS loss (Glare x4 = 1200 potency) and a minor compensation for having to use the lily heal should you... actually... have to use it that often. The fact that it is AoE is quite strange to me as I doubt it'd be that useful in AoE situaitons as I would be spamming Holy instead, and since everyone and their grandma has gotten massive AoE upgrades this patch, the pack is probably going to die before I use it.... so... once every 2 packs at the most? Meh. I really don't get why everyone thinks this is the greatest skill ever. They probably just look at the potency and instant cast and the new skill glare (pun intended) just blinds them to how mediocre it actually is.


2) No raid utility buff, loss of Aero III and overall equalizing of pDPS across healers [note, that's just what I've been hearing from the number crunchers at least. I don't know how true it is]. WHM's main flaw when it comes to dps is the need to stand still, like the black mage to cast most of its spells. FFXIV loves to have giant arenas with massive AoEs to make you move all around and give you little time to actually use said skills. WHM is also famous for its lack of off global cooldown abilities. Since all healers MUST be able to heal content adequately, we need to look at 2 scenarios:

A) If healing requirements are increasing across the board, more healing will be needed and thus in 5.0 healer's personal contribution to DPS will decline. This means that raid utility buffs that buff the DPS of the entire raid or at least a few individuals in the raid will be even more important because less personal DPS from the healers means you need to make that up somewhere to beat the enrage timer.
B) If healing stays exactly as it has been, then nothing will change at all and SCH and AST with their raid utility buffs will still be prioritized for the same reason above: every little bit helps when it comes to beating the enrage timer. If you have just a little more to give than the next guy, you're the better choice.

3) Soloing, Solo instances and overall fun factor. While WHM probably hasn't changed a whole lot in game play, it has lost its second DoT from Aero III. This means soloing and solo duties are going to take that much longer to complete and I don't know about you, but a lot of those are about as fun as watching paint dry and they take forever as it is now. Also, with DPS and Tanks seeming to get more DPS options this patch, I'm worried that taking away healer's options are going to lead to very tight DPS checks during these solo instances and that's going to be frustrating and stressful. You said you wanted to relieve stress from healers? Well, you probably did the opposite when it comes to this content.

4) Feeding us back skills that were taken away only to have them given back as "new" skills. It's lazy. It's insulting and it's just poor design. First you take away stoneskin to give us Divine Benison at level 66 when we got Stoneskin at 32 previously. Why do we need to wait 34 more levels to get this skill that was in our basic kits in ARR? Now you have Temperence which is another insult. After taking away protect in 3.0 and Divine Seal in 4.0, you give us both skills back (Protect in its PVP version at half the potency) as one skill at level 80. Now, Yoshi-P said in an interview with Mr. Happy that skills were given at levels that were indicative of how core they were to the job. So... you're telling us that Protect and Divine Seal-- two skills that were originally white mage exclusive skills that we got at level 7/8 and 40 respectively are so far off the core of WHM's job that we don't get this skill until level 80?! Talk about a freaking insult! Not only that, our level 80 skill uses refurbished assets from the Eternal Bonding ceremony? Are you for freaking real?! If anyone out there can name any other job in FFXIV that has had skills taken away and fed back to them as "shiny new skills" in an expansion and not reworked skills at a lower level than the expansions new skills please do tell me, because I can't think of any. WHY is this OK for White Mage and White Mage only?!

5) Movement-- You said you wanted to focus on WHM movement. Fine, but why not fix all the other problems it's been having in competing with the other 2 jobs as well? None of us asked for you to reduce healers to electronic versions of Simon Says. We wanted to be brought up to their level. And yet, you still haven't really fixed any of our movement issues. Hell, while you were fixing movement issues why not actually fix our lack of off global cooldown abilities instead of taking Plenary Indulgence and maing it TAKE 2 global cooldowns to use instead of being an oGCD ability we could use as we accumulated confessions? The Stormblood version as is is far superior to the stupid version you're giving us here. And while I'm on the subject:

6) Stop giving Astrologian carbon copies of our spells already! The two jobs are already so similar enough without this. Healers especially need to be diverse. If they are not, they get extremely boring. You have brought them closer than they have ever been to being exact copies of each other. Why?! How could you possibly think this is a good idea? It's like getting an ice cream cone with 3 scoops- white vanilla, green vanilla and blue vanilla.... ugh! It's so bland and boring.

7) Fluid Aura is... just a bind now? Seriously? WTF? That's all I have to say.

The biggest disappointment for me and shb whm...is the fact Glare isnt named "Banish".

I like the new lily mechanic, it gives you access to free alternatives to Cure II and Medica, and helps compensates for the dps loss (I'm fully aware of the potency loss from using 4 gcds, hence why I said "helps compensate" instead of "making up for") of casting said gcds. It's far from a perfect fix but I have faith the upcoming expansion will allow this version of whm to shine.

For me the only two things I can think of for whm is to make PI's effect put a shield on allies instead of a heal since an aoe shield is the only thing whm lacks for healing, and possibly making Afflatus Misery 1200 potency so that it makes the potency cost neutral as opposed to a loss.

Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

As much as I understand WHM, I think that the issue regarding the Afflatus Heals is over-rated for the panic it is. I took a step back these past couple weeks and I rethought about the WHY.

Instead of worrying about the past, I looked at the Afflatus set of Heals. They’re basically substitutions for Medica/Cure II except are Instant so that you aren’t clamoring for a Swift during a mechanic. As far as movement goes, WHM should be ok if it’s using Afflatus correctly so it isn’t a direct DPS Loss, but a positive. If you use the Afflatus Heals where you need to heal,it makes it worth it.

The problem with that is, if you think of it as something to use for an emergency situation, you're losing out. You get one lily every 30 seconds in combat, right? So if you're saving lilies for situations where you're needing to move and heal quickly, you're delaying Misery which already requires 90 seconds of being in combat + 4GCDs to use. If you're not saving them, you're still going to have to swiftcast medica in those situations because if you're panicked enough to need that heal now, you probably didn't plan for it. Either situation still makes Misery a damage loss. It's a mild compensation at best since it costs 4 global cooldowns to cast.