Endwalker White Mage has Issues

[Ryme]

I want to start out by saying that I am not the most experience white mage player ever, I am also in no way claiming that white mage isn't viable or that it cannot clear all the content in the game in its current state I am only saying that there have been several changes or lack there of to whm that, in my mind, make the job worse to play for no reason.

My goal with this post it to put everything that I think needs to be improved about whm in one place. I have seen some good discussion here and there in other posts but no posts that attempt to concisely summary where white mage need improvements and propose possible fixes. Maybe if we are lucky the devs will see this post and others like it and get some inspiration for where to take white mage since they don't really seem to have a solid direction for it right now.

Firstly, white mage's mp economy and recovery potential. Frankly whm has awful mp economy and post death recover at the moment. As far as I can tell it is currently the weakest of all the healers in these categories and especially when compared next to its pure healer counterpart astrologian who, when played well has functionally infinite mp. The combination of the nerf to thin air, loosing lilies on death and high mana costs really hamper whm's ability to function well in any situation where high pressure is put on their mp supply. I think the solution to this is very simple, lower the white mage's mana costs to be in line with astro, buff its base mp regen and maybe make thin air apply to the next two spells instead of one or something similar. I think this would go a long way to easing whm's mp problem.

Secondly, the lilies. This is probably the strangest issue that white mage faces at the moment and kind of shows how little care was put into their endwalker changes. While lilies were always "a dps loss" because misery didn't have the potency of four glares and instead was kind of like casting three glares and one healing gcd it isn't even that anymore. Now that glare has a potency of 310 while misery is still 900, lilies are no longer even equal to "3 glares and a healing gcd." On top of this, solace and rapture are no longer required for weaving windows because of glare's reduced cast time. All together the way everything shakes out, whm is discouraged from using its lilies at all, as now you would just rather use 3 actual glares and medica II. This might not be that big of a deal outside of optimizing play but its an issue that doesn't need to exist and frankly shouldn't. Fixing this is as simple as raising misery's potency to 930, though in a perfect world I actually think misery's potency should be around 1300 which I'll discuses further down.

[Ryme]

Thirdly, Liturgy of the Bell. I am not the first, nor will I be the last to say that this ability is odd. In most situations it isn't even really a button, its more of button than cure I but not by much. Its very obvious "Lillybell" was created to replace white mage's old ability to pop thin air and cure III spam for aoe multi hit attacks, but with more utility? Regardless, it is way to niche to even be remotely as effective as the combo it is trying to replace. My solution would admittedly make it very strong but I don't think it would be unreasonable strong and that is to instead of having it proc on damage to the whm, give whm the ability to recast the spell, expend 1 stack and pulse healing for a 400 maybe 300 potency, ogcd, 1 second recast time, 5 stacks same as now, same cooldown, same range. This is far closer to whm's old thin air, cure III combo but actually with more utility, balances out by the 3 min cooldown.

Lastly for the fixes, why is holy not a 1.5 second cast time now? This is just baffling, I see absolutely no reason to have glare on a 1.5 second cast time and not holy, squeenix pls.

The final thing I wanted to cover has to do with both white mage's death recovery and lily system in general. I think a very elegant solution to the fact whm doesn't have access to its lily skills at the beginning of a fight or after a death is to give them an ability that instantly generates 2 lilies, on like a 2-3 min cooldown. This would further help with mana recovery after death as well as let whm start fights being able to use their lily skills, instead of having half their gdc healing kit just unusable for 30 second.

This new ability coupled with my statement that I think misery should have a potency of 1300 would give white mage more damage but I don't think it would be too unreasonable and I want to quickly go over that so: Let's assume misery has a potency of 1300 (4+ a bit, glare's of potency) and white mage get 2 free lilies every 3 minutes from the previously mentioned new ability. This equals out to about an extra 830 potency in damage or about 2.7 glare every 1.5 minutes. Personally I don't think this is very much at all, and would help make whm more competitive with its healer counter parts in optimized content without pushing it to far ahead in a non raid environment.

If you got through all that, thank you for reading my post, hopefully it at least gave you something to think about. I really love the white mage and want it to be the best it can be so I would love to hear other peoples thoughts on this and maybe if we are lucky we will see some of these changes in game soon.

[Ashua]

It has been talked about quite often that a White mage is considered the easiest healer for a novice to enter. I am starting to see it in all my dungeon runs and ex trials. 9 times out of 10 it's any other healer but a white mage. I've only seen 1-2 white mages out of dozens of instance runs and ex-trial groups. So despite the supposed numbers, it has when it comes to game time the white mage is basically benched. Sorry but the White mage needs something. Allow being the only more than 1 DPS button healer I guess. Make it the most powerful pure raw healer and personal damage bringer as the embodiment of the aspect of the elements. Give it a 1-2-3 combo power with Water/Stone/Tornado.

[Hysterior]

Firstly, white mage's mp economy and recovery potential. Frankly whm has awful mp economy and post death recover at the moment. As far as I can tell it is currently the weakest of all the healers in these categories and especially when compared next to its pure healer counterpart astrologian who, when played well has functionally infinite mp. The combination of the nerf to thin air, loosing lilies on death and high mana costs really hamper whm's ability to function well in any situation where high pressure is put on their mp supply. I think the solution to this is very simple, lower the white mage's mana costs to be in line with astro, buff its base mp regen and maybe make thin air apply to the next two spells instead of one or something similar. I think this would go a long way to easing whm's mp problem.

I don't agree with everything, especially on MP economy.

While Thin air is definitely not ideal for DPS anymore, WHM is now the premium raise healer: Swiftcast + Thin air + Raise is just unbeatable. No other healer can raise at no cost.
And unless your party really messes up, you probably will always have a thin air with your Raise. It's really good.

With Thin air on raise + Lucid, assize, asylum on cooldown and only healing with Afflatus skills, you should not run out of MP, even if you spend your time nuking.

And for post death recovery, Benediction is still completely OP and I have not seen a single time in any of the 2 new Extreme primals where I would need to use benediction on a tank.

[YusiKha]

I am starting to see it in all my dungeon runs and ex trials. 9 times out of 10 it's any other healer but a white mage. I've only seen 1-2 white mages out of dozens of instance runs and ex-trial groups.

According to FFLogs, the vast majority of uploaded logs for the extreme trials contain WHM, it being the second most popular job after Reaper. Just because it hasn’t been your experience doesn’t mean it hasn’t been the experience.



Anyhow back to White Mage-
Your suggestion for Thin Air, it giving multiple free spells, is probably all that’s required to bring WHM’s mana economy back in line. It’s a change I’ve been hoping for too. Though I imagine the current intention was to prevent people from getting multiple free raises under thin air, so it could be altered to only refund a specific portion of mana (or have Raise consume all stacks) rather than flat free costs.

My thoughts are that Misery should cost 2 blood Lily stacks instead of 3 (though you can still bank 3).
This would keep Misery at a damage loss (albeit only 30p over 3 GCDs) in a vacuum, but placing Misery inside most raid buffs would net an overall damage gain. It would also be a minor buff to WHM’s mana economy, as it means more Misery casts overall.
The cleave damage would need to be adjusted to suit, but that’s a minor issue overall.

As for Liturgy of the Bell, I think it would be worth taking notes from Sage’s Panhaima.
Have it apply 5 stacks of the healing effect to each member individually, which are consumed for healing when struck.

[Mansion]

I don't agree with everything, especially on MP economy.

While Thin air is definitely not ideal for DPS anymore, WHM is now the premium raise healer: Swiftcast + Thin air + Raise is just unbeatable. No other healer can raise at no cost.
And unless your party really messes up, you probably will always have a thin air with your Raise. It's really good.

Old thin air could do just that too... that's not the issue here. Making it the next spell only nerfs it by a lot compared to a duration of free casting (it was 5-6 GCDs before I believe?)
In any case, old thin air worked just great when you used it regularly, and has a great synergy with Lucid Dreaming.

And for post death recovery, Benediction is still completely OP and I have not seen a single time in any of the 2 new Extreme primals where I would need to use benediction on a tank.

You didn't get OP's point. They meant if you die, you get raised, and Lucid / thin air are on cooldown, you get terrible MP regeneration (only your piety score actually, and Assize perhaps).
AST keeps their seals, which means they don't interrupt their astrodyne flow which has great MP regen. They draw more often that WHM Assize too.
SAG keeps generating Addersgall when they die, which means they usually have some stacks pooled when they raise, which offers quick MP regen per use, and do great healing or mitigation that is not hindered by death debuff.
Arguably, SCH also has a hard time in the similar context, but their 1min button (aetherflow) gives them 20% of their mana, which is better than Assize. And they can use these to heal too, with no mana cost (while WHM has lost their lilies with their death), sure Benediction is strong but that's not the point here.

Death excluded, if you pop Lucid Dreaming on CD there is no real MP problem with WHM, and Thin Air here and there to better benefit MP regen ticks works fine, but WHM have a harder time if they forget Lucid Dreaming compared to the other 3.

[Silver-Strider]

I don't agree with everything, especially on MP economy.

While Thin air is definitely not ideal for DPS anymore, WHM is now the premium raise healer: Swiftcast + Thin air + Raise is just unbeatable. No other healer can raise at no cost.
And unless your party really messes up, you probably will always have a thin air with your Raise. It's really good.

With Thin air on raise + Lucid, assize, asylum on cooldown and only healing with Afflatus skills, you should not run out of MP, even if you spend your time nuking.

And for post death recovery, Benediction is still completely OP and I have not seen a single time in any of the 2 new Extreme primals where I would need to use benediction on a tank.

WHM was the premium raise healer before the nerf so that's not new and now we have to double weave and clip our GCD even worse than in ShB. It's no better than old Thin Air because the amount of MP you saved with the old system would essentially even out with 2 free rezzes anyway.

Also, if you believe for 1 second you won't run out of MP, you've clearly never had cohealers during Ex2 that just don't heal the tanks when the adds are murdering them and Afflatus Spells are not going to cover that. Benediction is 1 spell on a 3 minute CD. How does that help you recover after a death? FFS, I've used Bene to save tanks during add phase in Ex2 because of useless Cohealers. Post Death recovery is awful on WHM.

[Liam_Harper]

What troubles me most is that a lot of WHM's popularity is because SCH and AST are stuck with gimmicks and players just don't find them fun, so WHM or Sage is their only option. Not because WHM is good. However, SE will likely direct all their attention to SCH and AST to try and increase their popularity and as we've seen in the past, they do this by buffing the class until players start picking it up again, rather than needed reworks. They'll assume WHM is doing great because it's "popular". So AST will become even more OP and WHM will remain untouched.

I don't agree with everything, especially on MP economy.

WHM is the premium Raise healer in chaotic runs and the messiest progs, where you actually need to be using Thin Air + Raise on cooldown. Otherwise it's the worst. Who cares if you can Raise a few times for free when AST can pay the full cost and still never run out of mana? You also have to double weave to Swift+Thin air, or delay a GCD, which is clunkiness the other healers don't have.

As soon as your group is semi competent Thin Air becomes rubbish. 4% mana on a 1 minute cooldown. No other healers have mana regeneration tools that get worse the better you play.

Benediction is not OP, it's overkill. Essential Dignity is superior due to its far shorter cooldown and double charges. Bene just fills niches like Living Dead.

[Meerkats]

I used to keep all my healers leveled. Ever since healer homogenization started in earnest in ShB though I've lost interest in really healing. I still play a whm to do the story because it's great responsive healing in story content dungeons, but honestly I have more fun with the crafting and gathering game than I do playing my healers. If I want to actually heal real content, I push keys in wow and do that for fun. Otherwise, I don't really care about battle content in ffxiv.

[Ryme]

My thoughts are that Misery should cost 2 blood Lily stacks instead of 3 (though you can still bank 3).
This would keep Misery at a damage loss (albeit only 30p over 3 GCDs) in a vacuum, but placing Misery inside most raid buffs would net an overall damage gain. It would also be a minor buff to WHM’s mana economy, as it means more Misery casts overall.
The cleave damage would need to be adjusted to suit, but that’s a minor issue overall.

As for Liturgy of the Bell, I think it would be worth taking notes from Sage’s Panhaima.
Have it apply 5 stacks of the healing effect to each member individually, which are consumed for healing when struck.

I think these are very interesting fixes. Misery only needing two stack would probably feel a lot better to play, if for no other reason than casting Misery just feels fun so casting it more would just be more fun. This actually leads to a higher damage increase as well as opposed to my fix of 1300 potency as it would come out to be 1350 potency every 1.5 min. I actually think this is a much more solid change to the spell, it would also give whm more ogcd options for moment as well. Though I still think Misery should be dps neutral in this example even if its only 30 potency, it just makes it cleaner and simpler when comparing it to glare casts.

Your proposed Liturgy of the Bell is a good fix, but I think it's unlikely that square would go that direction as they seem to want it to be a fixed position healing area like asylum. Though this doesn't really address the hp fall off when it expires which when it happen makes the spell feel pretty bad for a 3 minute cd.

What troubles me most is that a lot of WHM's popularity is because SCH and AST are stuck with gimmicks and players just don't find them fun, so WHM or Sage is their only option. Not because WHM is good. However, SE will likely direct all their attention to SCH and AST to try and increase their popularity and as we've seen in the past, they do this by buffing the class until players start picking it up again, rather than needed reworks.

Personally, I don't actually think its a problem if the other healers get most of the attention, they are more complicated classes both to play and thus to balance, whm already has a very solid foundation to work from. My big problem is that the issues whm is facing, however minor or major they may be are bafflingly simple to correct. Such as glare going to 310 but misery not going to 930, or glare being 1.5 sec cast but holy still 2.5, just number tweaks. Its like they just forgot how their class worked going into Endwalker.