Thread: Can we have Tetragrammaton at Lv.15?

Originally Posted by Grann-Goro

It would destroy even more what remains of the bahamut coil challenge, so no thanks.
Plus lv50 whm gameplay is perhaps the best gameplay of the job (or the least bad) as it doesn't rely on ogcd and free heals, which means more casting and mp management.

Yeah, because those things only need to exist for WHM and not AST or SGE. Make it excruciating to sync down as White Mage, yeah that's the REAL challenge!!!! ROFL.

Yeah honestly, when I'm doing content that I know will be below level 50, I don't even queue in as WHM. I go as AST or SCH.

I went into this game wanting to heal, and WHM was the only option available right out the gate. My experience from level 1 was terrible. Hard casting the same 2 spells, slowly. Tanks who don't mitigate, in min level gear, wall pulling and I'm just spamming Cure 2 because as soon as I heal them they just take even more damage. Not a single instant cast burst heal until benediction at level 50, which is on such a long CD that it barely counts. You don't even get an aoe regen until relatively late. The single target regen is pretty late as well, not 'til the mid 30s if I remember right. It felt awful. Aurum Vale was misery. It got better after 50, but the job felt so different that it was a little jarring when lilies were introduced all of a sudden. When I leveled SCH/AST later, I was mad at how much better they had it in the early game, and how AST's early game in particular did such a superior job of laying the foundation of what was to come. All jobs should have an early game that tries to do this.

So yeah I'd be all for it. Teach early WHMs how to work their heals between damaging spells and incentivize good play early on. Maybe cut down on all those 0 DPS WHMs I see in dutyfinder/partyfinder. There's no downside to this imo.

Originally Posted by Grann-Goro

It would destroy even more what remains of the bahamut coil challenge, so no thanks.
Plus lv50 whm gameplay is perhaps the best gameplay of the job (or the least bad) as it doesn't rely on ogcd and free heals, which means more casting and mp management.

I genuinely hate to break it to you, but even min ilvl synced will never give you that challenging feeling of the old content as it was when it came out. You're likely running it with jobs that didn't even exist back then, using skills the content wasn't balanced around with different potencies those devs never accounted for, and none of the resource limitations that people originally had (because nobody even uses mp anymore outside of like 3 jobs, and TP doesn't exist anymore, etc). Thousands of new WHMs shouldn't have to suffer because you want an authentic coils challenge that doesn't exist anymore. That ship sailed a long time ago. I know you said "even more" to imply that you're aware of this, but I really want to emphasize how much has changed since then because I think it shows how trivial 1 tetragrammaton (iirc op even mentioned a lower potency version) is compared to how the rest of the game has progressed and indirectly nerfed older content anyway. Giving WHMs tetra would be negligible compared to all of that.

Originally Posted by Avoidy

When I leveled SCH/AST later, I was mad at how much better they had it in the early game, and how AST's early game in particular did such a superior job of laying the foundation of what was to come. All jobs should have an early game that tries to do this.

Keep in mind that SCH and AST both start at level 30, not level 1.

That said, I do agree with the general idea that Jobs should lay the FOUNDATIONS of their gameplay early. For example, BLM has you set up for Ice/Fire dancing by level 2. RDM starts at 50 but still sets up the concept of Dualcast at level 2 (technically level 1 but you have no spells), and certainly by level 4 once you have the slow cast Verthunder. Some Jobs are WAY better at this than others.

...though if I was to be sarcastic, WHM has Stone and Aero by level 4, and so sets up the core of its DPS gameplay loop by then, in a way. XD

But I do feel Lilies (at least Solace or a lower level version of it) should be available WAY earlier than it is.

.

EDIT: Though if I WAS going to move several things around...

Solace at level 18 in place of Stone 2 (you don't get Stone 3 until level 54, Stone 2 can wait a bit), Tetra at level 40 in place of Cure 3 (you do NOT need Cure 3 at level 40; outside of Coils, the first content that really demands it that players are likely to encounter is, what, Niddy at level 60?), which lets us move Benediction to level 60 where Tetra was (as kind of a "bigger, more powerful, Tetra" instead of the current Tetra being a weaker, less powerful but more frequent, Bene), and Stone 2 at level 46 (where Aero 2 is now; you don't get an upgrade for Aero 2 until Dia at level 72, so it can wait), and Aero 2 at level 52 in place of Solace.

Short version:

Replace Stone 2 with Afflatus Solace - Level 18
Replace Cure 3 with Tetra - Level 40
Replace Aero 2 with Stone 2 - Level 46
Replace Afflatus Solace with Aero 2 - Level 52
Replace Tetra with Benediction - Level 60

Put Cure 3...somewhere. Probably level 60 (right now you get Bene and Medica 2 at the same level, so Bene and Cure 3 at level 60 would feel really powerful for new WHM players)

Could also leave Cure 3 at level 40 I guess and put Tetra at level 20 or 25 since CNJ gets nothing between 20 and 30 other than Maim and Mend at level 20 itself. So it's not like there's not room for it to fall in that gap somewhere. This would just change the above to:

Replace Stone 2 with Afflatus Solace - Level 18
Add new skill gain: Tetra - Level 25
Replace Aero 2 with Stone 2 - Level 46
Replace Afflatus Solace with Aero 2 - Level 52
Replace Tetra with Benediction - Level 60

I this sense, you get Stone 2 a bit before the end of ARR, so you get what feels like a powerful visual upgrade to your nuke (yes, you've been casting it for 46 levels, but the alternative is casting Stone 2 for 36 and it seems a decent time for said upgrade to feel more impactful). And, honestly, I've personally always disliked Stone 2's animation and liked Stone 1's. I get it's just throwing some rocks, but something about that felt cool to me where Stone 2 just doesn't have much of a visual unless you're looking at the enemy's feet/groin, and the tunnel along the ground isn't that noticeable. Note that this isn't why I suggest moving it here, though I would consider seeing Stone 1 through more of the game/when syncing to be a positive for sure.

You get Aero 2 in HW (so instead of having Aero 1 for 42 levels then Aero 2 for 26, you have Aero 2 for 20 levels and Aero 1 for 52; not ideal, but I feel like it would still flow better), in exchange, you have Solace for basically your entire 4 man dungeoning experience in the game, getting used to using Lily abilities early (even if you don't get Rapture until 76, but honestly we could swap it with Plenary at 70), and you get Tetra at either 40 (first list) or 25 (second list) so you start getting used to using it less as an "oh snikies" button and more of a "I can heal with this in a pinch but I can also use it more freely since it's up pretty often) button. Bene at 60 makes more sense, as you won't start seeing a lot of tank busters to cheese until then anyway, and it makes more sense for "Fullcure" to come at a later level than "oGCD Cure 2" anyway. If we move Cure 3 (second case) it will feel like a second strong capstone heal at level 60 (when you might actually have need for it), though in the second case it doesn't move anyway.

.

There are a few other changes I would make in my ideal world (one is add Stoneskin and/or Protect/Shell to the game at a low-ish level and have them upgrade to Divine Benison and Aquaveil at high levels), but moving Solace and Tetra to earlier in the game wouldn't at all be amiss.

Originally Posted by Donoman

The pure healers are already very similar, WHM is literally just a weaker AST early on. Keeping the jobs unique should only matter after their power levels are the same.

To be fair, "balance" doesn't really exist - or arguably matter - until at LEAST level 50, and realistically, not until level 60 and 70. And you can clear Aurum Vale chain casting Cure 2. Believe me, I've been playing since ARR when that instance was current content and tanks (and some healers) were wearing a smattering of gear from level 20s pieces across to level 40s. The game was notorious about not giving you accessories at that point, too. Chain casting Cure 2 while sweating bullets over MP was a thing, and it's not generally as bad now, I don't think.

WHM is plenty FUNCTIONAL for sub-level 50 content. It's only not if you want to exclusively oGCD heal, which you can't do on any healer at that level range other than MAYbe SCH (due to Eos) and possibly SGE (due to Kardia) anyway. If you're WHM or AST, you're going to have to cast some heals. It's part of the experience.