White-mage is doomed - and why

[Iedarus]

I was thinking how much better White Mage would be if the devs amped up its damage potencies, and while Misery should be DPS neutral, if they went the damage route, in order to bring it up to par with the other healers, they would have to increase it so much that the buffs and debuff from Astrologian and Scholar, respectively, would effectively not matter since they would be working harder for the same value. Being the "super healer pug carrier" only takes it so far when a good healer can carry with any of the three jobs. The only way for White Mage to not be in the bottom for another expansion while not rendering the other two obsolete is if they have their own unique team utility.

[Silver-Strider]

I was thinking how much better White Mage would be if the devs amped up its damage potencies, and while Misery should be DPS neutral, if they went the damage route, in order to bring it up to par with the other healers, they would have to increase it so much that the buffs and debuff from Astrologian and Scholar, respectively, would effectively not matter since they would be working harder for the same value. Being the "super healer pug carrier" only takes it so far when a good healer can carry with any of the three jobs. The only way for White Mage to not be in the bottom for another expansion while not rendering the other two obsolete is if they have their own unique team utility.

There's a few ways that SE can amp up WHM's damage without buffing it to kingdom come.

They could add an extra charge to Tetragrammaton so that WHM has an extra oGCD heal in their pocket so that they could keep up their Glare spam more freely.
They could decrease the time it takes to accumulate a Lily down to 20 seconds so that Misery would align better with Raid Buff every 60 seconds instead of the current 90 seconds. While still a DPS loss for WHM, getting Misery into Burst Windows more frequently would go a great ways into making that loss much less substantial as a whole.
Hell, they could simply return Aero 3 and that would do it too.

The options are there, SE just has to implement them is all.

[QooEr]

Heaven help them (both barrier healers) if they run out of stacks and actually need to cast a gcd heal

then you start considering what mp-neutral tools every healer has.

For aoe whm gets
1 medica ii from thin air (700 heal potency /min)
2 lilies/min (800p/min)
1 asylum every 90s (466p/min)
the extremely unreliable assize 533 p/m which could very well be 0
and 1-3 procs of plenary indulgence. 200-600p/m
2166-2566 aoe heal per min
2699-3099 if assize gets to coincide with damage

sage for aoe gets
physis: 700p/min
2 kerachole: 1000p/min
1 ixochole w the remaining stacks if kera is always on cd: 400p/min + rizomata 266p/min
physis ii: 333p/min
panhaima: 450p/min
pneuma (?) technically costs 200 more mp: 200p/m

3149 aoe heal per min, 3349 if you wanna count pneuma

before sage even considers using a gcd heal, rhey first have to exhaust their myriad of off globals. Whm has fewer and on a longer cooldown to boot, and has to rely more on gcd heals if incoming damage is that strong.

only real advantage whm has is raising in thin air, but ast can do the same and end up with more mp than whm anyway...

[MsTanya]

then you start considering what mp-neutral tools every healer has.

For aoe whm gets
1 medica ii from thin air (700 heal potency /min)
2 lilies/min (800p/min)
1 asylum every 90s (466p/min)
the extremely unreliable assize 533 p/m which could very well be 0
and 1-3 procs of plenary indulgence. 200-600p/m
2166-2566 aoe heal per min
2699-3099 if assize gets to coincide with damage

sage for aoe gets
physis: 700p/min
2 kerachole: 1000p/min
1 ixochole w the remaining stacks if kera is always on cd: 400p/min + rizomata 266p/min
physis ii: 333p/min
panhaima: 450p/min
pneuma (?) technically costs 200 more mp: 200p/m

3149 aoe heal per min, 3349 if you wanna count pneuma

before sage even considers using a gcd heal, rhey first have to exhaust their myriad of off globals. Whm has fewer and on a longer cooldown to boot, and has to rely more on gcd heals if incoming damage is that strong.

only real advantage whm has is raising in thin air, but ast can do the same and end up with more mp than whm anyway...

Well yeah I'm well aware they have tons of ogcd tools, even without dipping into their healing of any kind they still run at around 800mp deficit. I was speaking solely on the mp front, not trying to compare healing toolkits at all.

[Semirhage]

It blows my mind that AST's GCD heals are still cheaper than WHM's. They were initially cheaper in 3.0 because they were weaker. Then Square learned how undertuned AST was, and eventually buffed their GCD heals to be just as powerful as WHM's; I don't think there's a single kit-equivalent heal between WHM/AST where AST is weaker anymore. But the MP cost is still lower. On the healer that has a hilarious crapload of oGCD heals and so barely needs to dip into their GCDs at all. As opposed to the healer that's "supposed" to be the "GCD healer", which is doubly punished more heavily for GCD healing by both losing more damage and costing more MP for...GCD healing.

Madness. Nonsense job design.

Heaven help them (both barrier healers) if they run out of stacks and actually need to cast a gcd heal since there isn't a way to mitigate that lost cost like thin air would, and raises will be even worse. Plus they're forced to dump mp on something since no gcd is ever free. I think you're vastly undervaluing casting higher cost abilities for free.

The other healers also have far more oGCDs, on shorter cooldowns, and have to GCD heal less frequently. Doesn't completely make up the difference, but it's one of the many, many reasons why WHM is so craptastic and is literally -never- meta.

[MsTanya]

It blows my mind that AST's GCD heals are still cheaper than WHM's. They were initially cheaper in 3.0 because they were weaker. Then Square learned how undertuned AST was, and eventually buffed their GCD heals to be just as powerful as WHM's; I don't think there's a single kit-equivalent heal between WHM/AST where AST is weaker anymore. But the MP cost is still lower. On the healer that has a hilarious crapload of oGCD heals and so barely needs to dip into their GCDs at all. As opposed to the healer that's "supposed" to be the "GCD healer", which is doubly punished more heavily for GCD healing by both losing more damage and costing more MP for...GCD healing.

Madness. Nonsense job design.



The other healers also have far more oGCDs, on shorter cooldowns, and have to GCD heal less frequently. Doesn't completely make up the difference, but it's one of the many, many reasons why WHM is so craptastic and is literally -never- meta.

Yeah I'm oblivious to astro I tried it on release it was awful then it got buffed and I think I speed leveled it to cap for the magic title and never touched it again. 3.0 astro left me hating the job forever. That's the entire point I was trying to make though, whm is basically being forced to be a gcd healer with the way their kit works but like I replied to the guy above I was solely comparing the mp differences and noting that whm isn't zomg doomed when you utilize everything that's designed into the job to conserve mp.

[Semirhage]

You mean blowing lilies and eating a damage loss for it? Yeah, that's...a way to conserve MP. Further funneled through your asstastic MP economy to utilize your punishment-disguised-as-reward system because they couldn't even be bothered making any of the healers' job systems actually damage neutral or a gain as a *gasp* reward for using them. God WHM is so terribly designed.

[MsTanya]

You mean blowing lilies and eating a damage loss for it? Yeah, that's...a way to conserve MP. Further funneled through your asstastic MP economy to utilize your punishment-disguised-as-reward system because they couldn't even be bothered making any of the healers' job systems actually damage neutral or a gain as a *gasp* reward for using them. God WHM is so terribly designed.

I mean yeah it doesn't feel great but the tools to maintain a somewhat neutral mp are there, as garbage feeling as it is to do it. I hope they do address some of these issues though. I was only trying to be positive and say hey maybe not so doomed or at least not alone in the suffering.

[Sunako]

You mean blowing lilies and eating a damage loss for it? Yeah, that's...a way to conserve MP. Further funneled through your asstastic MP economy to utilize your punishment-disguised-as-reward system because they couldn't even be bothered making any of the healers' job systems actually damage neutral or a gain as a *gasp* reward for using them. God WHM is so terribly designed.

Every lily is theoretically 113,3 potency loss. Less if you use Misery on raidbuff windows. Theoretically that is 226,7 potency lost every minute. It is kind of similar what scholar lose by using Aetherflow on indo/sacred soil etc.. But ofc for SCH that is optional while for WHM it is demanded, if you wanna sustain mana after seven and half minute.

[Semirhage]

Didn't Square get rid of Accuracy because it was a boring, obnoxious "you must be this tall to ride" stat that didn't feel good to meld and didn't feel impactful outside needing to slap a specific number on your gear in order to approach combat effectively? I wonder why that suddenly came to mind.