Evolved White Mage: Fixed

[ty_taurus]

White Mage's evolved design has the right idea, but does a very poor job executing on the concept, creating something that lacks skill expression, lacks clear and unique perks outside of healing, and will likely feel horrible to play outside of group content. So I wanted to share my take on a revamped version of Evolved White Mage to still capture the idea of a healer who wants to use their GCD for healing, but has more ways to engage with that concept, more ways to engage with downtime, and more clear advantages that will set it apart from the other healers. I've tried to describe only the most important details about the actions below, so not every cast time or MP cost will be listed. Just things that I felt were important to understanding the flow of the job are listed. But first, let me start by explaining the core mechanics of this concept:

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Sanctity Gauge: White Mage may hold up to 3 stacks of Sanctity. When Sanctity is consumed, a lily will blossom on the healing gauge. Additionally, the Sanctity Gauge will glow when under the effect of Assize.

Healing Gauge: When casting certain actions, a lily on the healing gauge will automatically be consumed to nourish the blood lily. These actions will be labeled with "(Lily)" after their name.

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With that information in mind, here is the 16 action hotbar that I would create for an Evolved White Mage and what I think would make the White Mage as exciting as the other jobs showcased during the demonstration.

1. High Cure (Lily) - Restore HP to one ally
> Becomes Afflatus Solace under Assize
Afflatus Solace (Lily) - Restore HP to one ally and grants a regen

2. Medica III (Lily) - Restore your HP and the HP of nearby allies
> Becomes Afflatus Rapture under Assize
Afflatus Rapture (Lily) - Restore your HP and the HP of nearby allies and grants a regen

3. Raise - Revive one fallen party member.

4. Esuna - Remove one negative status from one ally.
> Becomes Esuna III under Assize
Esuna III (Lily) - Remove one negative status from you and nearby allies

5. Assize - Deal damage to all nearby enemies
> OGCD with a 40 second cooldown
> Restores some MP
> Blossoms a lily on the Healing Gauge
> Augments your next High Cure, Medica III, or Esuna

6. Aquaveil (Lily) - Reduces damage taken by one ally
> Now a GCD; costs 200 MP
> Grants an MP regen to Disciplines of Magic
> Grants an HP regen to Disciplines of War

7. Benediction - Restore 100% of one ally's HP
> OGCD with a 120 second cooldown
> Can be cast off cooldown; each cast reduces effectiveness by half (100% > 50% > 25% > 12.5% > etc.). Reduction is reset when the cooldown ends.

8. Liturgy of the Bell - Blossoms a lilybell that restores HP to nearby party members each time you take damage up to 5 times; can reactivate to detonate remaining stacks.
> OGCD with a 180 second cooldown

9. Temperance - Reduce damage taken by you and surrounding allies for 10 seconds
> OGCD with a 60 second cooldown
> Increases own movement speed
> Enables one use of Divine Caress within the next 30 seconds
Divine Caress - Restores your HP and the HP of nearby allies (500 potency)
> 100% of overhealing provided by Divine Caress increases each ally's max HP by the same amount for 15 seconds

10. Aethereal Shift When cast while standing still, grants knockback immunity. When cast while moving, dashes 15 yalms in the current direction.
> OGCD with a 40 second cooldown with 2 charges

11. Glare III - Deal damage to one enemy with a potency of 250
> 2 second cast time
> Combos into High Glare
> Becomes Afflatus Purgation under Thin Air
High Glare - Deal damage to one enemy and enemies nearby them with a potency of 350
> 2 second cast time
Afflatus Purgation - Deal damage to enemies in a line in front of you with a potency of 550 for the first enemy and 50% less for other enemies
> 2 second cast time
> Enemies hit deal reduced damage for 10 seconds
> Extends the duration of Divine Caress by 5 seconds if active

12. Dia - Deal damage to one enemy with a potency of 250
> Instant cast, but has a 20 second cooldown on the GCD with 2 charges
> Combos into High Dia
> Becomes Afflatus Sanctuary under Thin Air
High Dia - Deal damage to one enemy and enemies nearby them with a potency of 350
> Instant cast, but has a 20 second cooldown on the GCD with 2 charges
> Inflicts stun for 4 seconds
> Shares a recast timer with Dia
Afflatus Sanctuary - Deal damage to one enemy and enemies nearby them with a potency of 550 for the first enemy and 50% less for other enemies
> Instant cast
> reduces the MP cost and cast time of your next spell to 0
> Does not have a recast time

13. Holy III - Deal damage to one enemy and enemies nearby them with a potency of 300 for the first enemy and 50% less for other enemies.
> 2 second cast time, but has a 20 second cooldown on the GCD with 2 charges
> Costs 600 MP
> Grants 1 stack of Sanctity
> Holy III can be cast without charges, but the MP cost is doubled and will blossom a lily instead of grant 1 Sanctity

14. Afflatus Misery - Deal damage to one enemy and enemies nearby them with a potency of 1200 for the first enemy and 75% less for other enemies.
> Instant cast
> Consumes the blood lily

15. Thin Air - Spends 1 Sanctity to enable the cast of either Afflatus Purgation or Afflatus Sanctuary
> OGCD with a 1 second cooldown

16. Float (Lily) - Allows you and nearby party members to walk on air for 10 seconds allowing you to walk over pitfalls and avoid damage from hazardous floors or puddles.
> Instant cast, but has a 180 second cooldown on the GCD
> Costs 800 MP
> Additionally extends the duration of all regens granted by you by 15 seconds

[Carighan]

I think you use too many buttons, no?

16 is the maximum including generic buttons, I think. So the core gameplay should fit into 8-12. You need to have buttons transform into each other more, e.g. you got 3 GCD nukes that do nothing but well, nuke. There's no reason to use more than 1 button for that, as they don't offer differences in gameplay. In particular Afflatus Misery can just overwrite Glare if the Blood Lily is up?

[Heilstos]

For me the idea feels like the "reborn" modus with some changes.

[Derio]

I want the WHM limit break from PVP or something similar to PVE. What they showed was a good change but not enough to really move the needle in terms of engaging gameplay. If anything they just turned WHM into phys ranged.

[Calysto]

Nice to have you back Ty.

You could probably get some "contextual actions" depending on foe/friend target.
For #16 but I can only imagine a DRG still dying because they jumped over a hole.

I think you use too many buttons, no?

16 is the maximum including generic buttons, I think. So the core gameplay should fit into 8-12. You need to have buttons transform into each other more, e.g. you got 3 GCD nukes that do nothing but well, nuke. There's no reason to use more than 1 button for that, as they don't offer differences in gameplay. In particular Afflatus Misery can just overwrite Glare if the Blood Lily is up?

There's literally 16 buttons with numbers on them ?

For me the idea feels like the "reborn" modus with some changes.

well, Evolved is basically that too, what's your point ?

[Shurrikhan]

I suspect he meant that the 16 has to include all Role Actions and the like, leaving only typically 12 buttons for native actions. Even treating Raise as basically a role action, there are 14 native actions here, leaving no room for Swiftcast, Repose, Sprint, etc.

[flowerfairy]

I'd prefer the stun to be an action I deliberately choose for a stun instead of being baked into the single target rotation because in fights where crowd control is important, burning through stun resistance can be bad.
I think Holy as it is now has this problem too, but you would only see this in AoE situations.
Though I guess the solution would be to spam heals for blood lily instead?
I like the powerful and unique job fantasy of Float, similar to DRG's LB jump.

It's still following that philosophy that non-damaging GCDs should still even out to the same damage output as damage GCDs.
I have personal quarrels with deleting the impact and consequences of choice like this, but I understand this is just supposed to be a refined idea of what they were going for.
This is still an improvement and I prefer it over what we were shown.

16 is the maximum including generic buttons, I think. So the core gameplay should fit into 8-12.

It looks like the generic role actions (Lucid Dreaming, Surecast, Swiftcast) are already baked into the kit, but in WHM unique fashion.
Swiftcast is hardest to get access to, though. Seems like you cannot get it if there's no enemy.

[ty_taurus]

I'd prefer the stun to be an action I deliberately choose for a stun instead of being baked into the single target rotation because in fights where crowd control is important, burning through stun resistance can be bad.
I think Holy as it is now has this problem too, but you would only see this in AoE situations.
Though I guess the solution would be to spam heals for blood lily instead?
I like the powerful and unique job fantasy of Float, similar to DRG's LB jump.

It's still following that philosophy that non-damaging GCDs should still even out to the same damage output as damage GCDs.
I have personal quarrels with deleting the impact and consequences of choice like this, but I understand this is just supposed to be a refined idea of what they were going for.
This is still an improvement and I prefer it over what we were shown.


It looks like the generic role actions (Lucid Dreaming, Surecast, Swiftcast) are already baked into the kit, but in WHM unique fashion.
Swiftcast is hardest to get access to, though. Seems like you cannot get it if there's no enemy.

Correct, I tried to bake Swift and Sure into the kit. We didn't see Lucid in the showcase so I assumed it's already gone. I could possibly brainstorm ways to crunch the kit some more to include a more traditional Swift and Sure though.

As for the concern about stun, it could just be on High Dia instead of High Glare. Would that be more ideal?

[ty_taurus]

I made a small edit based on the conversation for the lack of Surecast. I gave Aethereal Shift 2 charges and made it a knockback immunity while standing still and a dash in the current direction, similar to how Bard was displayed, while moving. Thoughts on that?

[Zaytex]

I think WHM's design entirely depends on what the other three healers iterations will be... if let's say SGE becomes a DPS-like healer with their own small DPS rotations/buttons and combos that leads into healings/mitigation combos ..... AST gets actual meaningful cards with rng/fate and or thoughtful usage of them like in SB and or even ShB/EW with their healing toolkit being entirely delayed/time-based.... SCH gets more meaningful and decisive fairy/pet management along with maybe some of their DOTS back... then I think WHM is fine.

If those other three healers become much more complex and difficult to use, then WHM being the lobotomy patients (or new players) favourite toy is absolutely fine to me. It is after all the baby healer and its identity is to be simple. Do i agree entirely on what they have done with it? No, but if they want to take jobs in a more unique/individual with player choice of their rotations then 1 job in every role, has to basically be dumbed down incredibly.

Do I think this will happen? lol no, im sure all the healers will either remain as they are and or lobotomised even harder. I fully expect every healer to no longer have cast times.