Endwalker White Mage has Issues

[execlinca]

I don't think Holy's cast time is an issue - it's working as intended. Holy has a stun while the other AoE damage spells for healers do not, and its very OP for that. It makes dungeon healing much clunkier, but ironically makes lilies better as you can use them to weave. If they reduced Holy's cast they would remove the stun and I think no one wants that.

WHM right now just has bizarre disparities with AST. Cure 2 costs 1000mp for an 800 potency heal... Benefic 2 costs 700 MP for an 800 potency heal. They're identical. In fact, AST has a shorter cast time - if anything Benefic 2 should cost more! It's like this for all WHM and AST's basic heals and it just looks insane, especially when AST has incredible MP recovery and doesn't need the reduced cost.

Even if AST didn't have Astrodyne, it would have Draw for 500 MP every 30 seconds. WHM has Thin Air for 400MP every 60 seconds, and it has nothing extra. Of course I hold a single Thin Air stack for raises or medicas, but in reality the vast VAST majority of Thin Air usage goes on cooldown on Glare. It's extremely poor. With this said, I don't have MP issues unless things go wrong... in which case my MP doesn't recover for 3 minutes, I simply don't have the capacity to regenerate mana faster than I spend it.

I feel like WHM's problems right now are just its kit doesn't fit together, and the current focus on making healing 'easy' while ignoring players who like to optimise and do high end content has left WHM in a very odd place. WHM feels fine to play casually, but if you are trying to optimise it feels awful. You actively DON'T want to use your lilies unless in downtime. The 1.5 cast time has done wonders for WHM, as it can now actually use previously unused abilities like Plenary Indulgence, but as lilies cannot be weaved and Misery is a huge loss it makes them vastly worse.

Liturgy is beautiful and theoretically powerful, but in practice there are very little places you can get its potential out, which makes using it feel bad. Because of its long cooldown and short use period, you can't even use it on all of these places. You pick a specific moment where it will get as much use as possible (P3S add phase) and then work around it (meaning I'm hilariously using it immediately at the start of the fight on the raidwide and... the tankbuster?). It just isn't satisfying and is very frustrating.

[execlinca]

That's enough rambling but these are my thoughts to fix all this:

1. Liturgy CD reduction OR lasts longer OR activates on anyone taking damage, not just the WHM (literally any one of these buffs, not even all of them, would make it so much better)
2. Don't lose lilies when you die. AST and SGE keep their resources and SCH can recover them quickly with Dissipation, WHM has poor MP recovery as it is without being forced to Cure 2 after dying
3. Assize MP buff in line with SCH Aetherflow (so 8% MP or so?) - this would hugely help WHM's MP
4. Change WHM's MP costs (Cure 2, etc) to match AST's - there is no reason for them to cost more
5. Misery potency buff in line with Glare - lilies are good again!!! I also liked the earlier suggestion of Misery costing two lilies as another option, would allow for a lot more strategic Miseries
6. An Aetherflow style buff icon for lilies to show my cohealer how many I have. This is just quality of life and not an actual problem but it would help so much. Often other healers assume WHM can instantly fix things with its powerful heals but when we have no resources, it's actually very difficult...

I'm levelling AST right now but to be honest I'm enjoying it a lot less than I would be if I wasn't thinking 'I should be maining AST instead of WHM'. There is fun in AST but I don't super love the gimmick and I'm not ready to let WHM go, but I might if there aren't any changes... the changes are all very simple fixes that wouldn't make the job more difficult for newbies and casual players. They would make it easier and more fun for everyone.

The other healers are in amazing spots right now (super super happy with SCH this expansion!!) and it would just be perfect if WHM could have a few adjustments to get on their level.

[Silver-Strider]

I don't think Holy's cast time is an issue - it's working as intended. Holy has a stun while the other AoE damage spells for healers do not, and its very OP for that. It makes dungeon healing much clunkier, but ironically makes lilies better as you can use them to weave. If they reduced Holy's cast they would remove the stun and I think no one wants that.

Let me tell you why the cast time on Holy not being adjusted is a problem. The stun is NOT indefinite. You get 3 stuns before enemies become immune and at that point you are constantly having to move in order to avoid any potential AoEs that are thrown at your position, meaning that because of the 2.5s cast time, you usually end up having to cancel your AoE in order to not get hit and potentially killed in a trash pull. None of the other healers have this issue. SCH and SGE's are instant cast and can get out of the way no problem and AST is ranged and was never a problem to begin with. WHM loses out on damage every time it has to move for its AoE and for the healer that's entire purpose is damage is crap design, especially when it's already bad enough that you have to wait an extra second for the actual stun to take effect due to the animation delay.

I fail to see how exactly a 1.5s cast time on Holy would be OP.
The recast timer is still 2.5s so other than getting that stun out 1s earlier, it doesn't really change anything.

[execlinca]

Let me tell you why the cast time on Holy not being adjusted is a problem. The stun is NOT indefinite. You get 3 stuns before enemies become immune and at that point you are constantly having to move in order to avoid any potential AoEs that are thrown at your position, meaning that because of the 2.5s cast time, you usually end up having to cancel your AoE in order to not get hit and potentially killed in a trash pull. None of the other healers have this issue. SCH and SGE's are instant cast and can get out of the way no problem and AST is ranged and was never a problem to begin with. WHM loses out on damage every time it has to move for its AoE and for the healer that's entire purpose is damage is crap design, especially when it's already bad enough that you have to wait an extra second for the actual stun to take effect due to the animation delay.

I fail to see how exactly a 1.5s cast time on Holy would be OP.
The recast timer is still 2.5s so other than getting that stun out 1s earlier, it doesn't really change anything.

I know what you're saying, but to adjust Holy's cast time they would have to add that special something to other healer's AoE (which they said they would I'm sure? But it didn't materialise).

It's just a bit more difficult to use, which is fair when the stun is so powerful. It shouldn't be as effortless as AST. I don't think it would be balanced to be the same cast time as AST while AST doesn't have any additional power (sure, I would accept Holy being ranged instead? It would probably match better since both shield healers are melee). Not that I think AST needs buffing right now, I just think asking for 1.5 cast time on Holy is one of the things that seems excessive and could easily make the devs ignore the other criticisms that are much bigger issues.

[Silver-Strider]

I know what you're saying, but to adjust Holy's cast time they would have to add that special something to other healer's AoE (which they said they would I'm sure? But it didn't materialise).

It's just a bit more difficult to use, which is fair when the stun is so powerful. It shouldn't be as effortless as AST. I don't think it would be balanced to be the same cast time as AST while AST doesn't have any additional power (sure, I would accept Holy being ranged instead? It would probably match better since both shield healers are melee). Not that I think AST needs buffing right now, I just think asking for 1.5 cast time on Holy is one of the things that seems excessive and could easily make the devs ignore the other criticisms that are much bigger issues.

I don't see Holy's stun as powerful. I see it as a necessity to offset WHM's lack of oGCDs. The other healers have a plethora of oGCD heals that offset the lack of a secondary effect on their AoE skills, while posing little to no risk to them due to their nature of being instant cast or ranged. Holy in comparison has the longest cast time, making it much more riskier to use while also lacking the oGCDs of the other healers to at least minimize the need to stop using Holy once the stun is no longer in effect. Once Holy's stun is used up, you have to clip what few oGCD heals you have in order to try and continue using Holy but if any AoE attacks come at you, you have to cancel your cast and move, essentially wasting what opportunity your oGCD would have offered since you had to delay your cast even more than the clipping of the oGCD alone.

At this point, whatever advantage Holy used to have is lost beneath the waves of oGCD that other healers have at their disposal and the saddest part about it is that the Devs are so terrified of touching WHM because it's the most "popular" healer and think any changes would cause it to drop in popularity so they just ignore it.

[Liam_Harper]

I don't think Holy's cast time is an issue - it's working as intended.

WHM in a nutshell. Clunky, restricted, limited abilities because "they're so powerful, so it has to be that way!".

I read things like "Holy is to offset WHM's lack of oGCD's" and "it has to cause mandatory clipping because the stun is good!" and wonder what on earth they're designing. They give a class an aoe stun, sounds great, but now it's locked into having less oGCD's and a clunky cast time. Where does that leave WHM in raids, where the offset for their lack of oGCD's doesn't do anything? And what happens when the stun duration expires?

It's sad, but honestly if ripping the stun away from Holy meant the devs gave WHM aoe an instant cast and multiple strong oGCD's to weave, then throw the stun out the window.
Same with other things. If Benediction was a 25-30% heal on a quarter the CD, great. Lilybell on half potency but a 1m cd and detonate option? I'd take it. No damage on Assize in exchange for 2 charges and 10% mana restored. Sure.

It wouldn't be great design, but if WHM's abilities being "powerful" in niche situations is designing the class into being rubbish, then they're better off scrapping that identity.

[execlinca]

WHM in a nutshell. Clunky, restricted, limited abilities because "they're so powerful, so it has to be that way!".

I read things like "Holy is to offset WHM's lack of oGCD's" and "it has to cause mandatory clipping because the stun is good!" and wonder what on earth they're designing. They give a class an aoe stun, sounds great, but now it's locked into having less oGCD's and a clunky cast time. Where does that leave WHM in raids, where the offset for their lack of oGCD's doesn't do anything? And what happens when the stun duration expires?

It's sad, but honestly if ripping the stun away from Holy meant the devs gave WHM aoe an instant cast and multiple strong oGCD's to weave, then throw the stun out the window.
Same with other things. If Benediction was a 25-30% heal on a quarter the CD, great. Lilybell on half potency but a 1m cd and detonate option? I'd take it. No damage on Assize in exchange for 2 charges and 10% mana restored. Sure.

It wouldn't be great design, but if WHM's abilities being "powerful" in niche situations is designing the class into being rubbish, then they're better off scrapping that identity.

Yeah you're totally right. Nerf Liturgy so I can actually use it on cd, nerf benediction so I can use it on cd, and I would generally have a much better time. I would be happy with making the lilies oGCDs too. Holy doesn't feel like much of a problem to me probably mostly because dungeons aren't that important to me optimisation wise, but if they are using it to justify the rest of WHM's kit then whatever. It is all so mismatched right now.

Stellar Explosion is so good and it's a blend of Assize and Liturgy... I would love a detonate option on Liturgy lol. It's so useful. Liturgy really does not need to be as powerful as it is because nothing in the game is designed around NEEDING that power (or I would have more spots where I could actually use it fully) so its power is just a detriment at this point. I would resent that Assize change greatly but hey, I guess if it is the price to pay for our horrendous recovery...

[Silver-Strider]

Yeah you're totally right. Nerf Liturgy so I can actually use it on cd, nerf benediction so I can use it on cd, and I would generally have a much better time. I would be happy with making the lilies oGCDs too. Holy doesn't feel like much of a problem to me probably mostly because dungeons aren't that important to me optimisation wise, but if they are using it to justify the rest of WHM's kit then whatever. It is all so mismatched right now.

Stellar Explosion is so good and it's a blend of Assize and Liturgy... I would love a detonate option on Liturgy lol. It's so useful. Liturgy really does not need to be as powerful as it is because nothing in the game is designed around NEEDING that power (or I would have more spots where I could actually use it fully) so its power is just a detriment at this point. I would resent that Assize change greatly but hey, I guess if it is the price to pay for our horrendous recovery...

You really don't need to nerf any of WHM's abilities at all. The problem with WHM isn't that their abilities are too strong, it's that they're outdated. Once upon a time, that 3k heal from Benediction was extremely powerful but now that we have things like Macrocosmos, Zoe+Pneuma, etc. that 3k isn't as prominent any more and can hardly justify it's CD nowadays. Lilybell could potentially warrant a 3 minute CD if it was changed in a few ways.

Increase the duration to 30 seconds.
Let the WHM manually use each stack as an oGCD Medica cast that they could weave.
Remove the fall off heal at the end and just turn any remaining stacks into a burst heal at full potency.

Those changes alone would warrant it being 3 minutes because, while still weaker than Macrocosmos in terms of potential potency, it has a longer duration and would allow the WHM to always be able to control when the heals go off.

WHM just needs an overhaul really to update its entire identity

[MiaShino]

WHM in a nutshell. Clunky, restricted, limited abilities because "they're so powerful, so it has to be that way!".

Square; "White Mage is too stronk in Dungeons, make it clunky with Holy clipping."

Also Square; "We give Warrior self bene on 25 second cooldown unga bunga."

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