Although its only been a few days with playing the new White Mage, I do have to say that it kinda sucks but for reasons that is fixable. For those that do not know that White Mages have new changes which involve RNG … which with a few minor changes would actually be quite good.
Lilies
No, the Lilies are just for show.
So the first change is Lilies. Lilies are White Mages new stack management that has a percentage change for when we use Cure or Cure II to proc. Once it procs whenever you use certain skills such as Tetra, Assize etc the cool down timer of them speeds up slightly.
The problem with Lilies is that you can NOT control when you use them. If you wanted to heal the tank using Tetra quickly but then use Lilies to speed up your next Assize you will need to use Assize first and then use Tetra even if you need to suddenly heal the tank at which point you are fucked with it.
If Lilies changed so you had to turn them into stacks first (think Monk here) so for every single Lilies you get you get to use a skill like pray which converts the amount of lilies you have into Prayer stacks which then the next move you use will have a shorten cool down – this will allow White Mages to have control over when they want to use their Lilies rather than using them at random.
Divine Benison
Got to like how all the new spells are water based.
Divine Benison is a weird skill as it uses lilies and will use all the amount you have in stock … for no benefit at all and will always provide 20%.
The changes I would love to see is to change Divine Benison so that the percentage varies based on how many lilies you have. If you have no lilies its just a 5% barrier. For one , 10%. For two, 15% and for three 20%.
This at least will allow White Mages to have an on-demand barrier (even if it is weak) and ties it into the Lilies system. If we include this with the system above it means White Mages can stock up on Prayer stacks and have a cool down ready for tank busters.
Plenary Indulgence
Took me 43 cures to get one proc. Yep.
The logic behind Plenary Indulgence makes it a good skill but the design behind it is bad. Right now Plenary Indulgence has a small chance that when Cure is used on someone they will gain a proc. You can then use the skill called Plenary Indulgence which will then convert those procs into heals.
Sounds useful by logic but in application it is quite bad. The skill needs to change so it no longer uses Cure but instead another skill that White Mages rely a lot on – regens. I would change it so the confession stacks will proc randomly from regen and Medica II.
By doing this it rewards White Mages that DPS in their down time and also allows the procs to build up on other party members because lets be honest for a second – how many White Mages that read Life in Eorzea actually uses Cure on someone who isn’t the main tank?
I would expect the answer to be rarely. So a powerful AoE spell we have rarely gets used and it turns simply into a tank heal which when you are playing well you will not get often anyway as you will just be using regen mostly.
I would also remove the timer on the confession stacks so the White Mage could spend time during the fight to prep up for a massive attack but that might be a bit unbalanced.
Conclusion
The changes White Mage have in Stormblood works when you see how the developers intended it. The problem is the players play White Mages differently and rely a lot more on regens so they are able to keep their DPS up.
The current changes for White Mages discourages us from trying to do as much damage as we can just so we can build up these stacks. And honestly? Most White Mages will not bother to do this and instead play how they did at Level 60 where the job worked fine.
Change Lilies to a convertible stack and then it gives us a reason to aim for it.. Change confession to proc from regens and all of a sudden our skill is more reliable and usable. For Divine Benison they either need a reason why it uses Lilies (which does not include simply to force us to use Lilies), scale from Lilies or just give us Stoneskin back – we can not be the only healer that relies on RNG barriers where the other two healers do not have any form of RNG healing for their main tools which stops them doing their job.
Oh and the role skills? Fuck that. They should just add a few slots that is “always on” for skills that a every day healer will need. Then have the slots for the extra stuff that you may fancy. Same for tanks and healers too. Surprisingly PvP did this quite well so it may be something we see in future.
An example of this would be Esuna would be on this “forced slot” so every healer has it while Cleric Stance isn’t needed. Esuna is one of those skills that you do need as there is certain content where you HAVE to take it or people die – looking at you Dun Scaith.
Anyhows that is my take on White Mage. May need a bit of balancing but its something that its worth thinking about. Lilies kinda suck in the first place but with the right changes it could actually be kinda fun.
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