(WHM) White Mage Rework

[Velkai]

I've been playing around with some ideas in my head about making healers feel more unique and about people asking for different ways of dealing damage that isn't just spamming glare's with the ocasional dot refresh.

The main idea of this rework is to dive deaper into the white magic elemental fantasy of white mage that was lost a bit when they added glare and dia back in shadowbringers, while keeping it as stronger pay-off skill. Another aspect I thought about was not making a rotation so complex that the healer would need to think about healing and doing a hard rotation at once so I kept it simple while removing some skills that wouldn't make sense with this type of gameplay. Would really apreciate the discussion around it and want to know what do you guys think.

Disclaimer: potencies and durations aren't meant to be completely balanced, but should give a north about what I'm going for. Also if I didn't mention a skill it is because it is unchanged from current live.

White Mage

Removed actions:
Assize
Dia/Aero I/Aero II
Presence of Mind
Glare IV

Glare III
2.5GCD
1.5Cast
Potency reduced from 350 to 320
If under White Attunement
Recast time reduced by 20%
Cast time reduced by 40%

New: Stone III
2.5GCD
1.5Cast
Potency: 330
Always critical strikes
Grants Stone Tuning

New: Water III
2.5GCD
1.5Cast
Potency: 330
Additional Effect: Restores own HP and the HP of nearby party members
Cure Potency: 300
Grants Water Tuning

New: Aero III
2.5GCD
1.5Cast
Potency: 200
Additional Effect: Damage over-time
Potency: 50
Duration: 12 seconds
Grants Air Tuning

New Gauge: White Magic Wheel
If you have all 3 Stone, Water and Air Tuning grants White Attunement for the next 3 Glare III have increased magic damage dealt by 6%. After Gaining White Attunement 3 times, Nourishes the blood Lily and Transforms Medica III into Afflatus Medica while possessing at least 1 lily.

Lily Gauge:
Can now hold 2 Blood lilies.

New: Afflatus Medica
2.5GCD
Instant Cast
Cure Potency: 300
Additional Effect: Regen
Cure Potency: 200
Duration: 15 Seconds
Additional Effect: Nourishes the Blood Lily
Healing Gage Cost: 1 Lily

Edit 1: I wanna add something about the main gameplay loop: Basically the goal would be to use the 3 elemental skill in whichever order you would feel like it would be more convinient (remember the dot from Aero III does not stack) and than have a mini burst with the use of 3 glares with small cast and a fast recast, granting more mobility and a speedy pace without getting too overwhelming while trying to heal.

[ThorinG]

I've been playing around with some ideas in my head about making healers feel more unique and about people asking for different ways of dealing damage that isn't just spamming glare's with the ocasional dot refresh.

The main idea of this rework is to dive deaper into the white magic elemental fantasy of white mage that was lost a bit when they added glare and dia back in shadowbringers, while keeping it as stronger pay-off skill. Another aspect I thought about was not making a rotation so complex that the healer would need to think about healing and doing a hard rotation at once so I kept it simple while removing some skills that wouldn't make sense with this type of gameplay. Would really apreciate the discussion around it and want to know what do you guys think.

Disclaimer: potencies and durations aren't meant to be completely balanced, but should give a north about what I'm going for. Also if I didn't mention a skill it is because it is unchanged from current live.

White Mage

Removed actions:
Assize
Dia/Aero I/Aero II
Presence of Mind
Glare IV

Glare III
2.5GCD
1.5Cast
Potency reduced from 350 to 320
If under White Attunement
Recast time reduced by 20%
Cast time reduced by 40%

New: Stone III
2.5GCD
1.5Cast
Potency: 330
Always critical strikes
Grants Stone Tuning

New: Water III
2.5GCD
1.5Cast
Potency: 330
Additional Effect: Restores own HP and the HP of nearby party members
Cure Potency: 300
Grants Water Tuning

New: Aero III
2.5GCD
1.5Cast
Potency: 200
Additional Effect: Damage over-time
Potency: 50
Duration: 12 seconds
Grants Air Tuning

New Gauge: White Magic Wheel
If you have all 3 Stone, Water and Air Tuning grants White Attunement for the next 3 Glare III have increased magic damage dealt by 6%. After Gaining White Attunement 3 times, Nourishes the blood Lily and Transforms Medica III into Afflatus Medica while possessing at least 1 lily.

Lily Gauge:
Can now hold 2 Blood lilies.

New: Afflatus Medica
2.5GCD
Instant Cast
Cure Potency: 300
Additional Effect: Regen
Cure Potency: 200
Duration: 15 Seconds
Additional Effect: Nourishes the Blood Lily
Healing Gage Cost: 1 Lily

Edit 1: I wanna add something about the main gameplay loop: Basically the goal would be to use the 3 elemental skill in whichever order you would feel like it would be more convinient (remember the dot from Aero III does not stack) and than have a mini burst with the use of 3 glares with small cast and a fast recast, granting more mobility and a speedy pace without getting too overwhelming while trying to heal.

I liked the overall idea of leaning into the white magic elements then building up to stronger light aspected magic.

[Kayokane]

Main concern - What would the MP costs be?
Removing Assize, one of our MP regen tools (500mp/40s lost), without compensating for it will hurt WHM MP efficiency greatly. assuming all spells have the same cost as Glare III's cost WHM with low/0pie would run MP-/min at around 2.36/2.37 GCD, not taking into consideration prog scenarios - raises, or medica III w/o Thin Air

other than that the guaranteed crit you're giving to Stone III would need to be balanced around too high potency or we would turn WHM back into a stone mage... I mean with enough crit in your build you can crit your Misery, but why bother chancing the damage loss when the 4 Stone III's better 1/4 of the time

Is Water III a fully AoE spell or just AoE heal? If it's AoE damage, does it have damage fall off? whats the radius of the heal? Is is centered on a target or Self?

Aero III seem like a fine concept in the prospective rotation, only thing really would to adjust DoT pot and duration around the expected cycle length (assuming a 0sps build being optimal to offset MP issues 18s-24s for duration would probably be the best choice, allowing room for a possible GCD heals or Misery during the cycle)


assuming optimal lily management alongside the White Mage Wheel cycle, you should be generating 3 Misery per minute... (2 from standard Lilies, + 1 every ~117s for optimal White Mage Wheel @ 2.5GCD, faster for lower GCDs) I assume that's why you felt the need to add a second blood lily stack, that and to make up for the lost of our 2min burst button?

[Carighan]

Main concern - What would the MP costs be?
Removing Assize, one of our MP regen tools (500mp/40s lost), without compensating for it will hurt WHM MP efficiency greatly.

So it'd go from "Always full mana" to "Always full mana but a tiny bit closer to actually losing some, ever".

[AnotherPerson]

I rather keep Assize and introduce other actions. Assize is one of the few abilities that has a big aoe (not a small 5y radius like every other dps skill) and feels good to use when activating the skill in both single target and aoe scenarios.

[Carighan]

I rather keep Assize and introduce other actions. Assize is one of the few abilities that has a big aoe (not a small 5y radius like every other dps skill) and feels good to use when activating the skill in both single target and aoe scenarios.

It feels good, but I think it also lacks focus. It regenerates mana and heals, but due to FFXIV's absolute damage-focus it and it also dealing damage is used on-CD anyways regardless of need for healing or mana. Lest the DPS drop below maximum levels, which we can't have here.

I mean the word doesn't give us much for what it does right now either, hailing from assisting or sitting besides a judge. So... assist with judgement? Pure damage ability then, no? Or rather if anything this ought to be a party damage buff!

[Velkai]

Main concern - What would the MP costs be?
Removing Assize, one of our MP regen tools (500mp/40s lost), without compensating for it will hurt WHM MP efficiency greatly. assuming all spells have the same cost as Glare III's cost WHM with low/0pie would run MP-/min at around 2.36/2.37 GCD, not taking into consideration prog scenarios - raises, or medica III w/o Thin Air

other than that the guaranteed crit you're giving to Stone III would need to be balanced around too high potency or we would turn WHM back into a stone mage... I mean with enough crit in your build you can crit your Misery, but why bother chancing the damage loss when the 4 Stone III's better 1/4 of the time

Is Water III a fully AoE spell or just AoE heal? If it's AoE damage, does it have damage fall off? whats the radius of the heal? Is is centered on a target or Self?

Aero III seem like a fine concept in the prospective rotation, only thing really would to adjust DoT pot and duration around the expected cycle length (assuming a 0sps build being optimal to offset MP issues 18s-24s for duration would probably be the best choice, allowing room for a possible GCD heals or Misery during the cycle)


assuming optimal lily management alongside the White Mage Wheel cycle, you should be generating 3 Misery per minute... (2 from standard Lilies, + 1 every ~117s for optimal White Mage Wheel @ 2.5GCD, faster for lower GCDs) I assume that's why you felt the need to add a second blood lily stack, that and to make up for the lost of our 2min burst button?

The mana issue could be fixed with reduced mp costs for most actions like they did with scholar in 7.1. And the stone potency yeah is certanly off a bit haha it would need to be balanced in a way its not alway worth spammimg it over and over. And yeah I thought about the extra misery so it didnt't feel bad to hold it a bit for movement if you wanted to instead of having to use it on proc everytime since you would be generating it way more often. Also I posted this same rework on reddit and most complains were about the removing of assize so I guess I could keep it just reduce its healing maybe.