The expansion that White Mage needs

On Life in Eorzea, I have often written about changes I would like to see White Mages such as the healer robe changed so it has a version with a hood or a version of White Mage where it embeds more with Conjurer lore but with the development team moving more to traditional White Mage its time to discuss a few things that would make White Mage play better.

Before you do read anything else it is worth saying that I am not going to write about healers in general as Final Fantasy XIV are not going to change or become more complex so there is no point speaking how I would love to see protect and such to come back but without further delay lets read on!

Lilies

Lilies are the “core” on how White Mages works compared to the other two healers and it works that while White Mages are in combat they will gain a stack every thirty seconds which can be used for both Afflatus spells. Once these spells are used a stack of blood lilies will be gained which can be used on Afflatus Misery which is meant to be the answer to allowing White Mages to move around while always casting but it does not feel rewarding to use.

The reason it doesn’t feel rewarding is you ultimately lose DPS and thus the game is still trying to avoid healing as much as you can and still spam glare as much as possible while keeping Dia up.

So the change I would like to see is a new spell added called Banish. It could either be a thirty-second DoT or a small potency instant-cast spell similar to Scholar’s Ruin II that when used would give you a blood lily.

This would allow keeping lilies for when you are forced to heal or to use it for an overall DPS increase as Rapture no longer will be a DPS lose to use. The reason for it is due to this (assuming a hundred potency).

Currently it works like this which takes four GCDs in order to use Misery.

Glare -> Glare -> Glare -> Glare = 1200 Potency.

Afflatus > Afflatus -> Afflatus -> Misery = 900 Potency

With the changes above, it would then work like this.

Banish -> Banish -> Banish -> Misery = 1200 Potency

At least with this idea it is no longer wasted DPS in order to use a lily even if it is the same DPS overall. Toss in a DoT that uses a blood lily and we have made the DPS rotation a bit more complex which brings me to my next point.

More complex DPS rotation

White Mages surprisingly can be changed to have a more complex DPS rotation via the usage of its lily system. I would add a second DoT which uses a blood lily which lasts for sixty seconds. This would make White Mage’s rotation more complex while also allowing it to be a bit more flexible should you need to heal.

I personally would not want to see just another GCD DoT as much as I do miss Aero III but instead, something that makes us actively use lilies and blood lilies during an instance.

Cleric Stance

Ah, Cleric Stance the stance in A Realm Reborn and Heavensward that showed the difference between the good healers and the bad. How it used to be was Cleric Stance was a buff you needed to apply which once it was on the DPS spells used to be able to do a lot more damage while the healing spells did jack and this is something I feel needs to come back to increase the overall skill levels of healers.

I know Cleric Stance will not come back but it is something that I really feel is needed to bring back the danger of deciding between damage dealing and healing.