Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

[Pteryx]

While I applaud your intent to make some of the overly easy ToAU mobs somewhat more difficult, this move doesn't solve the deeper problems that current partying trends have revealed. One of those problems is that despite the white mage having stronger healing spells available than the red mage, the red mage is simply a better healer in party situations, especially when the amount of damage being taken isn't especially high and one wishes to minimize the number of back-line members. Due to the Refresh spell and Convert ability, the red mage is far less prone to running out of MP than the white mage; this is a key advantage in party play, where the ability to fight continuously against enemies is prized. However, to weaken or remove these abilities would harm the red mage greatly, and to grant similar benefits to the white mage would dilute the red mage's uniqueness.

Therefore, to make the white mage compete with the red mage as a healer outside of endgame applications, the white mage's healing must become significantly and undeniably more MP-efficient than the red mage's in experience point party situations. While there are ways in which the white mage is already more efficient than the red mage, many of these are either too slow to be useful, too dangerous to attempt, too inapplicable to the typical experience point party, too easy for the population at large to overlook, or all of the above.

In light of the fact that this would improve the balance between red and white mages with all that implies, and how simply the problem could potentially be solved, do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently? -- Pteryx, aka Kamiel@Midgardsormr

[Feba]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

I wonder if anyone actually reads the rules before they ask SE a question.

You know, I honestly don't blame them for not replying.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

I wonder if anyone actually reads the rules before they ask SE a question.

You know, I honestly don't blame them for not replying.

I don't think a second set of questions was ever even sent out to SE for them to answer.

[Mhurron]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

WHM is already the most efficient healer in the game, Regens and curega spells plus a high Cure with much less enmity gain guarantee that. If you think RDM is chosen for burns because of curing efficiency, none of your 'solutions' are going to do anything to change that.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

I wonder if anyone actually reads the rules before they ask SE a question.

You know, I honestly don't blame them for not replying.

He asked a question.

That's better than all of Legal Fish's questions. He actually thinks this is the "Tell SE they are morons" forum.

WHM is already the most efficient healer in the game, Regens and curega spells plus a high Cure with much less enmity gain guarantee that. If you think RDM is chosen for burns because of curing efficiency, none of your 'solutions' are going to do anything to change that.

RDM is invited for MP efficiency and the fact their cures are more than up to the task. WHM has to rest, RDM does not often have to rest, if at all. Cure IV + Refresh + Convert + /WHM help make RDM more than adequate for the task. And Healing skill is so flawed as it stands that anyone that hits the cap get the same level of benefit a WHM would.

RDM has endurance on its side, WHM does not. The problem for WHM is they're forced to depend on COR, BRD and RDM to get MP back. WHM needs to gain MP endurance by some means and so far /SMN, Sanction and a Vermillon Cloak or Noble's Tunic is about it.

[Feba]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

That's better than all of Legal Fish's questions.

Doing something smarter than dumbassery is not intelligence.

[Pteryx]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

Since I'm big on actually making suggestions for implementation, even if just for starting people's thought processes, I'm preserving my more specific suggestions here.


A possible first step to take in improving white mage healing efficiency would be to make Regen II and Regen III as MP-efficient as the original Regen is, whether by lowering the costs or by increasing the durations. This would encourage more efficient play on the part of white mages and reward the effort put into such an intelligent tactic, helping to make them stand out as healers even in party situations. An additional step that could be made with regard to these spells would be to make the casting time of Regen II shorter than that of Regen, and Regen III's shorter still, much like ninjutsu casting times. This would make it so that even a white mage who favors playing as efficiently as possible would be able to react quickly to emergency situations, and further encourage the spells' usage.

A second step that could be taken would be to give the white mage an inherent Cure Potency job trait at middling and high levels, out of reach of those using white mage as a support job but still low enough to make a difference for white mages who are competing with red mages' MP-recovery ability. A trait that grants a 40th-level white mage an additional 10% to cure potency would give even white mages of modest skill an efficiency advantage that party leaders would notice. This could be increased by an additional 5% at level 75, further encouraging players to invite a white mage over a red mage as a healer for merit parties. If one wished to implement a more complex but also more party-specific solution, one could additionally grant the white mage a trait that increases cure potency with the EXP chain or limit chain, perhaps starting at level 60 -- perhaps 1% per chain number, with a maximum of 20% additional potency. -- Pteryx

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

I personally think as far as any non-ToA jobs go (aside from this update, anyway) that its a "wait and see" time for adjustments.

ToA jobs didn't bring too much subjob potential to the table, though /BLU is good in some areas and /COR decent for BRD in some situations. /PUP is nice for the first 10 levels then you put it away. New jobs may bring new subjob potentials to the table that address present issues.

I'm holding out hope that SE will implement Chemist as a class. My fantasy is that the job would be tool-based like NIN and COR are known to be, but for support "item" spells. I've always taken to giving my FFT WHMs Chemist support skills so that when MP gets low, there's still items to fall back on. I think tool-based cures could level things out for any kind of healer and give WHM and even SMN the MP endurance that they presently lack. But, again, that's just my idea.

I agree that Healing skill does need to be relevant, but the question isn't the Cure and Regen spells themselves, but WHM's endurance vs RDM's.

[Aeni]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

How would making a WHM more attractive?

Change the death penalty so that dying now costs 25% of your total exp (TNL) for that level.

Now ... make it so that R1 will only salvage 30% of that loss exp. But R2 can salvage roughly 75% and R3 95%.

Make R2 and R3 also reduce the length of the ressurection sickness. R2 will cut the time in half while R3 will reduce it by 2/3.

What does this mean? This means that, no matter how great your awesome TP burn is going, if even a couple of deaths occur, it will negate w/e advantage a TP burn is gaining w/o a WHM to the point it is on par with a "traditional setup."

Also give monsters more one shot moves that affect job classes w/o block/shield ratings.

...


BTW, it's not a serious suggestion. Don't even take anything I said here in this thread seriously. I know it's difficult to balance off a game and make an unpopular job popular again. I just wish the good folks over at SE much luck in figuring this tricky problem out.

[Pteryx]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

I feel that this particular issue is important, so I'm bumping it for the question window. -- Pteryx

[Karinya]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

I think the problem is monsters so weak a rdm/whm can cover all your healing and support needs. If you have two healers a rdm+whm will beat two of either job and the problem pretty much goes away.

It wouldn't hurt for whms to have a cure potency trait, or a trait that reduces hate gained by healing (would be very nice for Curagas), or even some more advanced protective spells like Stoneskin II (like Phalanx II, it can be cast on party members; stronger per person than Earthen Ward, but if you want to cover everyone you'd have to cast it 6 times). But I think more challenging monsters would restore the value of the 3 person backline and WHM as a part of it, even without additional changes to the system; so it might be better to do that first and then see if additional changes are needed.

[Gentoo]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

I certainly don't disagree with you Karinya, however...

While the problem might be that the monsters aren't up to snuff, I don't think it's realistic to think that SE would ratchet up the monster difficulty to pre-ToAU levels.

When that other MMO that shall not be named came onto the scene, there were plenty of comparisons drawn to the relative ease of XP on it's fauna versus the grind FFXI heaped on the players. Arguablly, [parts of] ToAU can be said to have been designed specifically to address this disparity. Like it or not, it's difficult to argue that the high XP, low damage, low HP monsters aren't a popular addition, and I doubt SE would remove something that's been such a hit.

So, the job that's specifically designed to be the best healer cannot fulfill it's role. Barring that the environment will change to bring various jobs back into balance makes Pteryx's core question salient; do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

[Karinya]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

Well, if they intend to keep monsters helpless forever, then jobs that are designed to keep the party alive in the face of fierce attacks are going to be useless forever. At least in exp. You don't need a more powerful healer when you're fighting wimps; you just need one that can keep going and going and going, and I don't think anyone is ever going to replace RDM as the Energizer Bunny. (I hope not. The idea of a job with *more* endurance than RDM has now is pretty scary.)

By similar logic, you also don't need a tougher tank; you need one that's also a DD (or just a bunch of guys with shadows).

[Malacite]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

The simple fix to this is to change healing magic once again to more heavily reflect on cures and to remove the soft caps.


If a WHM can heal as much HP or close to with a Cure 3 as a RDM can with Cure 4 due to sheer skill level, then Refresh and Convert won't be as much of an issue (and SE could boost PLD's healing skill level while they're at it too)

This would also go along way towards nerfing /WHM and making SE realize just how broken SMN is.

[Karinya]

Re: Do you plan to help WHM heal more efficiently?

So you want to completely destroy SMN in order to slightly weaken RDM (which actually has quite good healing skill, better than PLD I think - and you know how often SE changes multiple interacting things at once)?

I think that would be a very bad idea, whether it did anything to help WHM or not.

The simple fix is to encourage parties to fight monsters where having a WHM *and* a RDM is a good idea if you want to live, not a waste of space that could pack in another WAR/NIN. There's no reason they have to fight each other for party space - that's solely an artifact of today's DD-heavy massacre-the-helpless parties.