Intro
Black Mage
Bard
Class Quests: 8/10 Fun to Play: 7/10 Complexity: 4/10 Depth: 9/10 Levelling 4/10
TLDR: White mage is a fantastic healing class that acts very reactively to the unfolding combat, using a suite of oGCDs and regeneration effects to keep everyone alive. It is let down somewhat by level locking at key breakpoints for levelling dungeons, and the feeling of unlocking the real play style of the class post 50.
Introduction: White Mage is the reactionary healer of the group of available healers, focusing on removing damage taken as it comes in. The class also features powerful regen effects, and a couple of cool damage and healing options off the global cooldown. They also are known for their AOE, holy, a mass stun and damage blast that is very useful for trash pulls.
Class Quests Conjurer 1-30: The conjurer quests are an entertaining little journey of mentor ship and becoming one with the land. Sylphie and the guild master are endearing, flawed characters who I am happy to see returning in the early Stormblood quests.
White mage 30-50: a rather simple, somewhat rushed tale of an outsider being going from distrusted to relied upon and proven hero still finds a way to hit for me. The use of characters we know and interact with throughout the main scenario, along with some fairly strong duties, make these my favourite of the healer quests.
White mage 50-60: to begin with, purge the taint, very funny stuff. Anyway. These quests once again feel somewhat rushed, but generally work well, with the shift from never leaving our home to let us aid the hunt in Ishgard feeling very plot required.. The new character is likeable, the journeys through Ishgard interesting and the final villain mediocre, but having a strong final duty confrontation which makes good use of the healer identity, its satisfying nonetheless.
Fun to play: Level 60 White mage is a joy to play, with a variety of powerful tools, the all powerful holy spam, and its own identity as the most effective reaction healer. However, the progression of the rotation is rather poorly paced, with all your oGCDs which define your play style at later levels backloaded into those later levels, which I’ll go into more in the levelling section. Overall, DPS feels satisfying, healing always feels manageable once you have access to key cool downs, and mana becomes a non issue with assize and thin air, plus good AOE healing to boot. White mage really doesn’t have any glaring weaknesses post 60, and takes some of the pressure I feel as a healer off.
Complexity: All in all, the actually mechanics of White Mage are simple. Fill life bars that are empty. There really isn’t anything difficult to understand, and even mana becomes a relative non concern with the occasional pop of lucid dreaming and thin air. White mage doesn’t hold many surprises, living up to its pure healer legacy, and simply brings strong healing tools and the best AOE for some extra spice. The most complex thing in the kit is understanding that cure 1 is completely a bait skill, which offers extremely low value the more mana generation you have, which can be safely discarded post Assize and Thin Air. Personally I stopped using it much earlier than that, and still only had the occasional mana concern in longer boss fights.
Depth: White mage is sort of a choose your own depth of play class. If you choose to forgo DPS, and simply spam healing, it’s probably the least deep class in the entire game. It’s when you choose to optimize your GCDs that any healer, but especially WHM, comes into an interesting territory. The bounty of oGCDs plus regen means you can theoretically use nearly every GCD on DPS if you so choose, only having to pop lillies or cure 2 when things get dire. This balance of DPS and healing is a very, very difficult dance and doing it perfectly is honestly next to impossible in the most complex content. Luckily, people rarely expect anything but to be kept alive by their healers, so it comes more to how much you choose to engage to speed up the dungeon, than it is necessary to enjoy yourself.
Levelling: White mage was the last healer I levelled, and honestly, it was very difficult in places. While I wouldn’t call the class bad at low levels, it misses some key break points that make some dungeons needlessly difficult for no real reason, like lacking medica 2 in Aurum, or regen in Brayfloxs. Add to this the fact that you get no mana generation, and no oGCDs, and it really feels like an incomplete class pre 60. Additionally, while presence of mind is certainly better than 30% mana, there still isn’t a very realistic change felt switching from Conjurer to White Mage.
The tools you gain from 50-60 change your play style so much and open up safety nets that the class seriously feels lacking in at early levels. One overcommitment into Holy can kill a tank at level 45, while at 60 you have 3 different ways plus Bene to quickly stabilize the situation. I feel as though the levelling curve of white mage really doesn’t train you for how the class will feel as you level up, and that made the levelling very difficult when the other two healers just have more tools to assist tricky spots early on, and then counterintuitively have less the more levels you put in white mage.
Conclusion: I really like white mage, and I don’t really like healing. The class feels like very comfy, with a variety of stabilizing methods and tools, but only after you get past level 50 content. I would personally recommend starting healer with white mage, or picking it up as your second choice. Levelling it last makes you really wish for those early tools that much more, while without that context White Mage actually teaches the essentials quite well. It’s definitely the hardest healer to level, but well worth it once you finish the Heavensward content.
submitted by /u/SealMeetsClub
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Continue reading...
Black Mage
Bard
Class Quests: 8/10 Fun to Play: 7/10 Complexity: 4/10 Depth: 9/10 Levelling 4/10
TLDR: White mage is a fantastic healing class that acts very reactively to the unfolding combat, using a suite of oGCDs and regeneration effects to keep everyone alive. It is let down somewhat by level locking at key breakpoints for levelling dungeons, and the feeling of unlocking the real play style of the class post 50.
Introduction: White Mage is the reactionary healer of the group of available healers, focusing on removing damage taken as it comes in. The class also features powerful regen effects, and a couple of cool damage and healing options off the global cooldown. They also are known for their AOE, holy, a mass stun and damage blast that is very useful for trash pulls.
Class Quests Conjurer 1-30: The conjurer quests are an entertaining little journey of mentor ship and becoming one with the land. Sylphie and the guild master are endearing, flawed characters who I am happy to see returning in the early Stormblood quests.
White mage 30-50: a rather simple, somewhat rushed tale of an outsider being going from distrusted to relied upon and proven hero still finds a way to hit for me. The use of characters we know and interact with throughout the main scenario, along with some fairly strong duties, make these my favourite of the healer quests.
White mage 50-60: to begin with, purge the taint, very funny stuff. Anyway. These quests once again feel somewhat rushed, but generally work well, with the shift from never leaving our home to let us aid the hunt in Ishgard feeling very plot required.. The new character is likeable, the journeys through Ishgard interesting and the final villain mediocre, but having a strong final duty confrontation which makes good use of the healer identity, its satisfying nonetheless.
Fun to play: Level 60 White mage is a joy to play, with a variety of powerful tools, the all powerful holy spam, and its own identity as the most effective reaction healer. However, the progression of the rotation is rather poorly paced, with all your oGCDs which define your play style at later levels backloaded into those later levels, which I’ll go into more in the levelling section. Overall, DPS feels satisfying, healing always feels manageable once you have access to key cool downs, and mana becomes a non issue with assize and thin air, plus good AOE healing to boot. White mage really doesn’t have any glaring weaknesses post 60, and takes some of the pressure I feel as a healer off.
Complexity: All in all, the actually mechanics of White Mage are simple. Fill life bars that are empty. There really isn’t anything difficult to understand, and even mana becomes a relative non concern with the occasional pop of lucid dreaming and thin air. White mage doesn’t hold many surprises, living up to its pure healer legacy, and simply brings strong healing tools and the best AOE for some extra spice. The most complex thing in the kit is understanding that cure 1 is completely a bait skill, which offers extremely low value the more mana generation you have, which can be safely discarded post Assize and Thin Air. Personally I stopped using it much earlier than that, and still only had the occasional mana concern in longer boss fights.
Depth: White mage is sort of a choose your own depth of play class. If you choose to forgo DPS, and simply spam healing, it’s probably the least deep class in the entire game. It’s when you choose to optimize your GCDs that any healer, but especially WHM, comes into an interesting territory. The bounty of oGCDs plus regen means you can theoretically use nearly every GCD on DPS if you so choose, only having to pop lillies or cure 2 when things get dire. This balance of DPS and healing is a very, very difficult dance and doing it perfectly is honestly next to impossible in the most complex content. Luckily, people rarely expect anything but to be kept alive by their healers, so it comes more to how much you choose to engage to speed up the dungeon, than it is necessary to enjoy yourself.
Levelling: White mage was the last healer I levelled, and honestly, it was very difficult in places. While I wouldn’t call the class bad at low levels, it misses some key break points that make some dungeons needlessly difficult for no real reason, like lacking medica 2 in Aurum, or regen in Brayfloxs. Add to this the fact that you get no mana generation, and no oGCDs, and it really feels like an incomplete class pre 60. Additionally, while presence of mind is certainly better than 30% mana, there still isn’t a very realistic change felt switching from Conjurer to White Mage.
The tools you gain from 50-60 change your play style so much and open up safety nets that the class seriously feels lacking in at early levels. One overcommitment into Holy can kill a tank at level 45, while at 60 you have 3 different ways plus Bene to quickly stabilize the situation. I feel as though the levelling curve of white mage really doesn’t train you for how the class will feel as you level up, and that made the levelling very difficult when the other two healers just have more tools to assist tricky spots early on, and then counterintuitively have less the more levels you put in white mage.
Conclusion: I really like white mage, and I don’t really like healing. The class feels like very comfy, with a variety of stabilizing methods and tools, but only after you get past level 50 content. I would personally recommend starting healer with white mage, or picking it up as your second choice. Levelling it last makes you really wish for those early tools that much more, while without that context White Mage actually teaches the essentials quite well. It’s definitely the hardest healer to level, but well worth it once you finish the Heavensward content.
submitted by /u/SealMeetsClub
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...