A Desperate Plea to Add Aero III

[TribblesFoxfolk]

I am on my hands and knees begging: Please give us back Aero III. White Mage in dungeons and even higher-end content feels terrible without it. Glare, Dia, and Holy are not enough; Glare IV can't be used often enough to feel like a proper substitute for Aero III. I can't take another 2-3 years of Glare and Dia.

With the stinger paragraph out of the way, let me introduce myself. I am Tribbles Foxfolk; long-time player, first time forum poster. I've been playing Final Fantasy XIV since late Heavensward (3.X), after World of Warcraft lost its luster and went in a direction I didn't like. I started FFXIV as a humble Lancer, and have since been smitten by this game (5020 hours, and counting). It's replaced a hole in my heart that WoW left, and it's been an incredibly important part of my life ever since I started playing. Starting in Stormblood (4.X), I made the conscious effort to learn every job in the game; healers especially caught my interest, as it was my main role in WoW as well (Restoration Shaman). The role of a support/healer---where my focus is less on personal damage output and more on teamwork, healing, and buffs---has always appealed to me. Ever since, my main jobs have always been Healers.

Now with introductions done, let's focus in on my main point: Aero III. Aero III has been absent from the game for over 5 years now, after its removal in Patch 5.0 "Shadowbringers" (July 2, 2019). For all 5 of those years, I've felt as though White Mage---and healers as a whole, though that's another topic for another time---has felt incomplete. None of its spells added since Aero III's removal have ever had an animation as appealing, or filled the same gap in gameplay that Aero III did. Multi-dotting was always a thing from the moment I started playing in HW; every job had multiple DoTs, some classes even before they get their job stone. This was something everyone had to manage, even in story content.

In Stormblood, much of the multi-dotting was trimmed down to single DoTs for most classes and jobs, though with a few notable exceptions: Arcanist (Summoner/Scholar), Archer (Bard) and Conjurer (White Mage). Summoner's DoTs were directly tied to their damage output through Fester (their single-target Aetherflow spender), and Bard's songs used to all proc from Windbite/Venomous Bite critical ticks (making the DoTs a core part of their kit). while for SCH and WHM...it didn't DIRECTLY fuel their mechanics (they didn't have a Fester equivalent), but it was important for a different reason.

Healers are expected to heal the party when there's damage, which means spending GCDs not casting Stone/Broil. To make up for it, Scholar and White Mage were allowed to use multiple DoTs on a single target, which gave them passive damage output while they were focusing on healing or doing an encounter's mechanics (mechanics that often necessitated movement or otherwise stopped you from casting).

For WHM, Aero III was especially important in dungeons because it gave them an offensive AoE spell to use between Holy casts, while the mobs were stunned, and the DoT applied to an entire pull added up quickly to a lot of additional damage that you only had to refresh every 24 seconds (sometimes the pull was dead without having to refresh it). It was also much less MP-intensive than Holy, costing around only 30% of a Holy cast (Aero III: 700 MP, Holy: 2400 MP).

In the now-times, WHM does not have Aero III anymore, nor does Scholar have Miasma or Miasma II (I might make another thread about Scholar and Miasma II later). While Scholar got a substitute with Art of War, and Sage has been given Eukrasian Dyskrasia, White Mage has not been given a substitute that serves the role Aero III did. Their AoE in dungeons feels terrible now; you cast a Holy, spend two Lilies on Afflatus Solace (top the tank off), cast another Holy, spend another Lily, cast another Holy, use Afflatus Misery, then spam Holy while weaving heals. (if it's even necessary to heal, most tanks can self-heal through even double-pulls)

This feels terrible, spammy, and worst of all, incredibly boring. Single-target is even worse: In lower-difficulty content (such as story-mode Trials, normal-mode Raids, and dungeon bosses), you often go entire minutes without casting a heal or having to spend a Lily, while only having Glare and Dia to press.

Aero III with its original 24-second duration solves many of these problems while bringing back a fairly iconic White Magic spell and having room to make upgrades for it.

1) It adds a spell you can press in AoE scenarios without causing more diminishing returns on Stun.
2) It gives WHM both active and passive damage in AoE scenarios, allowing them to passively contribute damage while still giving them the freedom to heal.
3) It breaks up the monotony of WHM's current playstyle, which is often sardonically referred to as "Glare Mage" or "Glarebot".
4) It's a lore-approved spell (originally being taught through a level 58 job quest) that adds some sorely-missing Wind magic to WHM's available spells. WHM currently has 0 Wind spells and only 1 Water spell after reaching level 72 (where Stone IV and Aero II are replaced by Glare and Dia, respectively); the job otherwise wields exclusively Light magic.
5) It can still be upgraded at higher levels while being lore-approved and something the WoL has encountered. Y'shtola as a Trust/Duty Support ally can cast Aero IV (as well as Stone IV and Water IV), and we've had several encounters with beings wielding high-tier Wind magicks, such as Garuda's many iterations. Upgrading the spell sometime during Dawntrail (around level 92 or level 94) would feel completely natural and appropriate to the story. There's also plenty of room for creativity in naming its upgrades and how its animations can be done.

Conclusion:

The point I'm trying to get across is that Aero III would be an incredible boon to how White Mage currently plays without being too disruptive. Yes, a second DoT to keep track of would change the flow by quite a bit, I think it would add a much-needed button at lower levels where Afflatus Misery isn't available and still be a relevant button at all levels of play. It would stay lore-compliant with White Mage, it has room to be improved upon at later levels (especially if its potencies were lowered at its introductory level), and perhaps best of all, it's a button that's already in the game. NPCs still use it; I've seen someone (I think Y'shtola) cast it in Tower of Zot.

It's the spell I miss the most; I want so badly to have Aero III once more. I just want to be able to cast it again, if for no other reason than it just feeling good to cast. I love the animation, I love the sound effect, I love Wind magic especially.

[Sani2341]

Welcome to the club.

SE has been ignoring requests for this since 5.0 dropped. But I very much agree.

Still salty they had to make e. Dyskrasia aoe not stack with e. Dosis for some stupid reason.

[Azurarok]

I've been wanting them to go back to Earth and Wind magic for a while now. All WHM does now is emit lights (outside Aquaveil I guess).

The job picking up Glare in ShB made sense at least, there's plenty of light aether to learn it in the First, but it should've been what GlareIV is right now, a powerful nuke that you could sometimes use, instead of outright replacing Stone. Probably could've done something similar with Dia and Aero too.

[velswen]

I am on my hands and knees begging: Please give us back Aero III. White Mage in dungeons and even higher-end content feels terrible without it. Glare, Dia, and Holy are not enough; Glare IV can't be used often enough to feel like a proper substitute for Aero III. I can't take another 2-3 years of Glare and Dia.

I wish you the best in your campaign. I hope they add Aero III and Miasma II back.

[CaptainLagbeard]

Healers are just a step away from being abandoned content, so any complaint we have is just us screaming into the void.

[Kuroka]

I just hate that we have to spam holy to aoe, overstunning all the mobs... i want some aoe spam, astro has Gravitas, Sage has its *cant actually spell that* INCLUDING an AOE dot... whm still only only..

[TribblesFoxfolk]

Follow-Up:

I'm glad people seem to agree with my post, even if it was rather rambling and disorganized. (I had written it rather late at night.) I'll admit, I'm not optimistic about the odds of getting something like Aero III returned to the game, as it seems to clash with whatever CBU3's/SE's current design philosophy is for healers or the game at large. It's hard to feel any sort of optimism or even hope for any significant changes or additions to healers after 5 years of this.

I won't claim Stormblood was perfect, far from it, but I don't feel like the current state of any job is better than it was in Stormblood. Most roles lost their defensive and utility abilities going into Shadowbringers (RIP Palisade, Apocatastasis, Mana Shift, Refresh, Largesse, Eye for an Eye, Break, Awareness, Ultimatum), while healers lost...so so much. (RIP Miasma, Miasma II, Aero III, Summon: Selene, Stoneskin, Fluid Aura, Shadow Flare, Bane, AST cards, Time Dilation, Celestial Opposition, Diurnal/Nocturnal Sects)

There's not really been any replacement for what's been cut out. Every time, pushback against streamlining is met with the retort of "They'll add more later, they need to make room, button bloat was out of control". But when's "later"? It's been 5 years...when do we get to stop losing buttons, nuance, skill expression, and distinct playstyles? When do we get to start ADDING these things? Why couldn't the "combo" actions they added be independent of a 2-minute cooldown? Why is this 2-minute burst window the only time we're allowed to press buttons with any impact? Why did Nocturnal Sect have to die for a separation between "pure" and "shield" healers that didn't even last for the expansion it was introduced in? (Sage is a pure healer that can choose to flex into shields, SCH has so much regen now, WHM has Divine Benison and Divine Caress, and AST has Neutral Sect)

I'm just...I'm so tired...I'm tired of hoping for the major patches to fix it. I'm tired of being told "It's okay, just wait for next expansion". I'm tired of being angry, of being disappointed, of having to give up the role I love just to get to play the actual game. I'm tired of my good will and patience being taken advantage of and thrown away. I'm tired of shouting into the void. I'm...I'm tired. I'm tired and sad.

[einschwartz]

They took away our Aero III and bring it back to different healer 2 expansions later. It has one of best animations as well. I miss it so much.

[Xenoviastar]

Glare, Dia, Holy isn't enough? you have Assize and Lily that is a gain on aoe. if any healer is going to complain about AOE it's Scholar.

[TribblesFoxfolk]

Glare, Dia, Holy isn't enough? you have Assize and Lily that is a gain on aoe. if any healer is going to complain about AOE it's Scholar.

Why can't both complain about their AoE? Scholar has it bad too, and that's completely valid to complain about. There's no reason to butt heads over it when, frankly, all of the healers have it pretty bad in terms of offense in general. I'm just focusing on Aero III in this thread because it's the spell I want back the most (and it's probably the most realistic to ask for in terms of WHM).

I don't want to argue about this. Please, make a similar thread for Scholar, make noise and rally people; we're not competing.