Endwalker White Mage has Issues

[Semirhage]

I think you are conflating simplicity with poor design. Without changing anything about the other healers or anything else about whm glare's potency could be buffed to 1000, misery 4000, and medica 2 could be changed to be instant cast, have no cooldown, be totally free and restore 20000 total potency, whm would instantly be the best healer in the game by a mile and still be just as simple and just as poorly designed. Simplicity, good design and competitiveness are independent variables.

Those variables should be independent, but they aren't. WHM is the worst healer because it's simple (and also badly designed). This has gone back and forth in a circular argument on the Healer forums since Heavensward. WHM is the simplest -> easiest to play -> should be weaker because it's easier to play -> can't have utility because having no utility is its identity -> so it's simple and weak and uncompetitive -> but what do you expect it has to be simple because that's its identity.

You're right that it could have its numbers buffed and be competitive, and still be unfun. One of the things that gets rough when it comes to talking about the healer role (and WHM in particular) is that the issues with their design are just so numerous that it's impossible to cover them all in one conversation. WHM isn't fun to play and it's not competitive and it has no identity, and these have been more or less true for three expansions now. I'm convinced that the decision to keep it uncompetitive is directly tied to its simplicity (and popularity). When you take stock of just the sheer number of things the other healers can do that WHM just...can't, it's ridiculous. Want to shield the party? Sucks to be you. Offer a damage boost? Whoops can't do it. Movement skill? Nah you don't get one. Oh, is there anything you can do that the other healers can't? Mmmmm, not really. Free raise? Oh wait the other three just have excellent MP recovery and they aren't as bothered. As a WHM, you just have a bunch of artificial problems to work around because your class is gimped and just can't do a bunch of stuff, so you get carried by your cohealer.

WHM's "identity" used to be the "pure raw healer". We told Square over and over again that this doesn't constitute an identity, because either your higher output is required (and therefore your class is mandatory), or it's not, and it's overhealing. Well it looks like at some point they tacitly acknowledged this and just buffed everyone else's healing to be equivalent (and in many cases better). So now WHM's identity is....uh...it's the one you could train a piece of broccoli to play. Wow, what an identity, sure inspires there. And as long as that remains the central rule around which the job -must- be designed, it's going to be designed like crap.

Semir, i always love reading your posts. <3
That's all i wanted to say.

I don't always agree with the visceralness of their posts, but it sure gets a laugh out of me every time. And I can't fault them for their rage. I feel it too, like watching someone do something wrong and continue to make the same mistake over and over. At some point, you just wish you could reach through the screen and fix it yourself.

Kisses.