Current state of White Mage in Crystalline Conflict

[Xenthique]

I’ve seen people talk about WHM and how it performs in CC (Ranked) but nobody seems to bring these things up here so I’m doing it myself with some suggestions how to make it a bit better.

I have seen this job go from the most oppressive healer in Endwalker to being in the same league as SGE when players are debating which one is the worst out of all four green jobs.
I still think WHM is a solid job to climb from unranked to crystal rank but I feel it’s at disadvantage most of the time in higher ranks and the current meta.

The last time WHM felt good to play to me personally was early season 16 but somewhere in the middle of that the purify changes happened.
Purify went from longer cooldown to shorter one making it almost spammable and the resilience buff that makes you immune to stuns changed to only 2s from around 4s.

I honestly think that some of White Mage's job kit has never really recovered from the purify changes. The pace and flow of the matches used to be different in the past.
Longer cooldown purify made it so that people couldn't chase the same way they do now, WHM limit break with the stun was a threat and the enemy had to actually think what crowd control they wanted to remove with purify.

The job hasn’t changed that much when it comes to its abilities and especially the way WHM healing works with cast times.
WHM at times has to sweat and struggle to get the same outcome compared to other healers when it comes to healing, mitigating damage and surviving. I wish to see some changes made to it.

Cure II

The one spell I want to be changed the most and is currently the most rage inducing spell I’ve ever had to use to heal people or keep myself alive.

• It’s not instant healing. I have to stay still to cast it AND I CAN'T MOVE until the slidecast window. This feels like a death sentence most of the time.
• It’s on global cooldown. I need to wait for the global cooldown to pass for me to start casting Cure II if I have pressed something like sprint to keep up with my healing target.
• It’s very easily interrupted by stuns, knockbacks and even your own teammate by going behind a wall!

It shouldn’t be this hard to get one single heal off in a critical situation. It’s not always that bad but it’s just frustrating looking at ASTs and SCHs.
Those jobs use their instant heals and shield damage reduction buffs so easily and dash / speed boost to get out of situations.

SUGGESTION:

Replace Cure II with an instant cast lily heals or something else and nerf the cure potency from 12,000 if it’s too OP.

I honestly think any healing spell that has to be casted has no business in PvP with the amount of burst we have to react to right now.
Cure II is so awful, it feels so sluggish to use with the cast time and I think whoever still plays this job can agree.
I would rather be pressuring the enemy than wasting time positioning myself to precast Cure II on a teammate just so that I can actually get the heal off in time.

If Mr. Prime (our only pvp dev) is reading this: You gave Haelan as PvP Role Action for Frontline and Rival Wings which is literally Cure II but slightly stronger and uses mana.
It was recently made an instant cast in patch 7.5. Why not make Cure II instant too? Please.

Seraph Strike

Seraph Strike is the only movement the job currently has and you can only target the enemy with it which means:

You can easily go in but getting out won't be easy unless Seraph Strike is off cooldown, there is an enemy at range you can jump to and hope the enemy is standing somewhere safe (they are not).

Saving it for movement only isn’t an option most of the time because a lot of important skills and buffs unlock when you use it:

• Glare turns into Glare IV
• Cure II turns into Cure III (the only big instant AoE heal)
• Protect: 10% damage reduction for you and your team IF the teammates are close to an enemy you jumped to.

Another problem with Seraph Strike is that in some rare moments it can ghost. It doesn’t go on cooldown if my target dies OR I get stunned as I’m pressing it but I still move like it went off.
The same thing can happen with AST dash for example. This interaction has gotten me killed a couple times because I have needed instant heals and since Cure III is locked behind Seraph Strike I have died because of it.
It’s rare but the fact that it can even happen.

SUGGESTION:

Add a new different skill button that unlocks Cure III and Glare IV and leave Protect buff for Seraph Strike or make it so that WHM can target and jump to allies with it.
AST / RPR / PCT dash would be pretty cool option too…(i’m kidding btw....or am i?)

Aquaveil

This skill currently gives 8,000 potency single target shield and it doubles if used on whoever has a status affliction that can be removed with purify.

I’m honestly surprised if the doubled potency shield has time to take effect before my teammate has used their 4s cd purify for the stun I wanted to nullify from them.
Using Aquaveil on a teammate was way more impactful in the past with the longer purify cooldown.
It’s still good in those situations when your teammate has no mana and you are trying to help them escape but it only removes one effect.
I’m fine if this skill isn’t touched but it could be made better.

SUGGESTION:

Make it work like BRD’s The Warden's Paean or RDM Forte:
On a successful cleanse, make it grant some type of short buff to a teammate or open up a new skill for the WHM to use.
I would like to keep it as a shield though since it’s WHM’s only defense against Samurai limit break.






Some may think: “Well the way WHM plays now is part of its charm”
By the mother Hyadelyn… I DO NOT hear, feel or think about your opinion.
I want this job updated at least for 8.0 and not be called a worse Pictomancer anymore.

That is all, tyvm.

[Atreus]

Finally, well-thought out job feedback that's focused on the playability aspects.

My only thought is that perhaps Seraph Strike could be utilized on a teammate as well if you want to deploy Protect before an engage. It's tough when one button has so many effects that you don't get to utilize to their fullest because you need to just unlock your moves.

[MayuAmakura]

Ye sadly WHM is a pretty terrible healer right now when compared to others. Astro just does everything better than you + stuns, can run away and slows and annoying unkillable machine. Scholar is also insanely broken right now. Sage has gotten way better than it used to be so it also has a spot. But WHM just lacks everything and once people focus on you, it's pretty much gg wp go next. You are almost guaranteed to lose every match against scholar or astro simply because they have better toolkit to keep their teammates survive longer than you do. After 2 cures and cure II, what do you do ??? meanwhile others can spam heals more and shields.

WHM is also the one that requires a bit of thinking before pressing spells. A lot of them are a noob trap, whereas other healers can spam and not care about anything.

Cure II is a strong aoe but has a big delay which sucks but can be in your favor. A lot of players use rush and then cure II instantly even if people are all topped up already which is a big loss on heals.
Seraph Strike is also one of those that makes gameplay very tedious because that one dash can make you instantly CC'd to death. A common mistake.

Aquaveil is a strong one, 8k doesn't look that good when TBN is better but you can get 16k so this means you have to watch constantly your teammates and apply accordingly, this can save a lot. Also can be used on you as a defense.
Cure is... idk, a cast time while other healers have no cast times lmao. Except maybe sage with damaging ability but we don't count those since its damage + heal.

Polymorph? Used to be busted but now idk. The cast time + the time it needs to be applied is much longer now which makes sure that players can never get punished for dashing into your team mindlessly as now they can do guard before your poly goes off which is incredibly frustrating. Back in the days you could burst someone with poly with your team, but changes with purify and giant heals / shields make this much more rare.

LB? Yeah "strong" on paper but the damage nerf is big and they also nerfed the dot potency heal. Plus its again one of those slow abilities (as they made people get stunned later) so now everybody can guard against you.

Meanwhile none of these problems exist for other healers because they have instant freaking casts on every spell which makes them not worry about guard at all.

Despite all of this, I still managed everytime to have the biggest heal in entire game and frequently get 2 million heals by the end or even more. But this doesn't mean whm is broken.

Edit: I forgot to say that I had plenty of whm games in lower elo and it really feels impossible to carry your bad teammates compared to a scholar who can carry bad teammates with ease. Just feels incredibly unfair. There is a reason btw why many people use 3rd party tools and other stuff to instant guard against whm lb or poly, those delays enable it to be extremely precise. Have even tested against some people that I had my doubts and confirmed that they were indeed cheating.

Edit 2: Oh what about those bots and 3rd party tools abusers that use poly to remove your LB ? How many times it happened to you that someone presses poly at exact precise time and cancels your LB? Why you cannot cancel lb to half of the classes but this can be done with whm to a whm? There's some very interesting moves by some players where they walk towards you like bots, right into your 4 teammates, doesn't care about damage taken and just want to poly you because you are about to press lb. its so funny.

[Hazelx3]

I think it depends on where you play, SCH is only broken in the higher ranks, but in low ranks this class seems to be useless. In bronze - gold matches you usually get people that just run to the crystal and once they die and respawn they go fight a 1v5 or 1v4 and die again, over and over and usually dont even listen to calls. Thats why playing an offensive class there is much better.
I agree with the WHM changes, especially cure II, it should be instant.