The Good and the Bad: A Critique of Dawntrail White Mage

[currentlemon]

I have not seen any threads about Dawntrail WHM, so I guess I'll start. In my personal opinion, I like the new stuff WHM is getting. A welcome surprise, I guess. It's not breathtaking good or outright bad. However, we're not in a bad situation like in Endwalker as the Job is getting some decent stuff.

Could it be better? Absolutely!!!

I will take what I can get. And this is after three years of not playing the Job. Compared to 6.0, WHM will be one of the better off healers gameplay wise in my opinion, aside from SGE that is. So I'll break it down. The Good, the Bad, and the downright UGLY.

The Good

• WHM finally has a new DPS action. Shame we have to wait 92 levels, but it's a new DPS action regardless.
• Misery having it's potency buffed, remaining a DPS neutral tool.
• The level 100 capstone ability is nice. Gives WHM a decent party utility.
• The new Dash action is a welcome addition. And it's gained at level 40. Not bad. Suspected it'd be locked at a much later level.

The Bad

• Tetragrammaton obtaining an extra charge. This wasn't needed. WHM has enough Healing actions already.
• We do not get a weaker version of Glare IV at an earlier level. Waiting until level 92 is rough. I feel like a reintroduction of Aero III or a Water spell on the game files would have worked at the level 50 to 60 range.
• Aero / Dia is still at 30sec duration. Two-minute meta, I know. But it'd help the one button issue if the duration of the DoT is decreased to the 15 to 20 second range.
• Presence of Mind still has a 120 second cooldown. This locks WHM's new DPS action for two minutes, which doesn't help the one button issue the Job suffers from.
• Thin Air nerf is still present.

The Downright UGLY

• Tanks NOT having their Sustain and Mitigation Tools nerfed. If things go unchanged, WHM will likely heal less on Dungeons and potentially Extreme / Savage / Ultimate fights
• DPS Jobs gaining some healing abilities they do not need, further rendering WHM's ability to heal.
• Free Cure trait still Exists. Cure I does not naturally upgrade to Cure II.

Overall, not bad. Better than EW WHM that's for sure. Heading into Dawntrail, I give WHM a "C-." Perhaps a "C" at best if we get some meaningful encounter design reworks on higher level fights.

Compare this to EW WHM, which I give an "F."

But how can WHM do better? Here are my suggestions.

Improving WHM

• Give WHM more opportunties to cast Glare IV. This can be done in two ways.

  • (BEST METHOD) Give WHM it's own proc similar to BLM's Thunder spell proc. Have Aero / Dia potentially proc into Glare IV for every second the DoT timer goes down. Make it a 10% to 20% chance the proc occurs. Have WHM gain this proc the moment Glare IV is unlocked.
  • (EASIEST METHOD)Decrease PoM's cooldown to 60secs.

• As mentioned above, decrease Aero / Dia's DoT timer to 15 to 20 seconds.
• No more Free Cure Trap!!! Get rid of the Free Cure Trait and have Cure I naturally upgrade to Cure II.
• This one is BIG Reintroduce Aero III or a Water spell as a weaker version of Glare IV at an earlier level.
• Remove the extra charge on Tetragrammaton.

[Supersnow845]

I have less than zero idea why they locked the new mitigation to temperance, that alone is going to make WHM remain a pariah in high end raiding because it has no mitigation

[Katish]

It gets an "F" from me still, it has failed to change the job meaningfully. You are still left to single dps spam which is the easiest thing to tackle...i.e what we are doing in Endwalker. While adding on, the tanks and other members don't need to be healed, especially even more so now with the newly added heals to the ones they already had. So, until they change the fact we spam one button, the easiest thing and most glaring thing to tackle, the "F" is definitely deserved. Though if it is ever tackled, I will move my assessment to at least a "D-". Not quite a "D", got to take into account all the new sustain added outside the role after all, and the fact we are getting even more healing skills which we won't be using.

What does an "A" look like in a healer role for me?
- Sustain heavily nerfed outside the role
- A proper change instead of the easiest thing to add (1,2) in terms of dps skills. Make it something like (1,2,1,2,3,1,2,1,2,3,1,2,1,2,3,4...)
- An answer to what if you're paired with another healer so you aren't trying to overheal each other
- Removal of healing bloat
- Risk, reward gameplay returned
- Removing of the ideology of Shield vs Pure healer

Going beyond "A" would include:
- Removing of the two minute meta
- Removing of healer homogenization or at least the steps towards it
- Less dress-like glams
- More unique mechanics for the healers to answer

[TKMXIV]

Also, the upgrades to Glare and Holy are still named Glare and Holy III instead of II. With Piece of mind now giving what should have been Glare III but it's named Glare IV because III was already taken.
What effect does skill names have on gameplay? Well, nothing really. Still, it sure is annoying to think about while playing solo content as a White Mage.

[Sylvain]

I have less than zero idea why they locked the new mitigation to temperance, that alone is going to make WHM remain a pariah in high end raiding because it has no mitigation

Funnily I was expecting WHM and AST to get mit and SCH and SGE to get heal.
This is exactly what happened but indeed those mit being tied to another mitigation feels off.
Like okay we can super mitigate once every 2 minute... but sometime it's better to "slightly mitigate" every minute.

I don't mind that those mit are tied to Temperance/Neutral, and tbh I'm glad it comes from a different buff. Which means that there is a possibility that they'll increase the buff duration to 60s?
If divine Caress had a 30s duration this wouldn't have been so bad as it would have been possible to mitigate 2 attack spaced by 50-55s with ease.
But a 10s duration means it's really gotta be used during Temperance.
I guess they just want Temperance and Neutral to feel like you're going into god mod? A bit like Seraphism and .AoEkardia.
One good thing is that I don't have to find space on my hotbar for that xD

For AST I don't mind, I was already almost never using neutral sect (out of prog) so that 10% is just an extra 2min mit. And if I were to be using Neutral Sect Helios, then it means things really hurt and that 10% would probably just fit right here anyway.