WHMs and their toolkits

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Originally Posted by Fevelle

I usually don't panic when I have someone at low HP. I tend to panic when I'm the one with low HP (like when I'm happily eating orbs at A4 and a wild Perpetual Ray hits me for an unexpected damage).

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I don't panic, but I know I have at most, 3 seconds to aid them are they are gonna drop. This has been a goal of mine: To reduce the amount of times I'm being hit. The less I'm curing myself, the more MP I can dedicate to others.

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Originally Posted by Twilite

I don't panic, but I know I have at most, 3 seconds to aid them are they are gonna drop. This has been a goal of mine: To reduce the amount of times I'm being hit. The less I'm curing myself, the more MP I can dedicate to others.

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It's kinda hard at A4 since most time the DPS don't bother eating orbs and when they do, they do it together and I have to deal with 3 DPS being damaged by the same orb.

Not speaking about the tank/DPS who will litteraly SPRINT into the orbs until he trigger all explosion...
Making it impossible to heal between 2 explosion

Instead of just standing in the orbs path and taking them one at a time...

I've rearranged the order of the post a little bit to try to make my response concise. Sorry in advance if any of this rearranging changed the context. I dont think that it did, and it isnt my intention to change anything.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Divine Seal + Regen --> DPS
DPS begins at 3 seconds (0.5s animation delay for Divine Seal + 2.5s GCD for Regen)
195 Potency / tick for 21s
619 MP consumed

Regen --> DPS
DPS begins at 2.5 second (waiting for Regen to complete GCD, activate Clerics during the GCD)
150 potency / tick for 21s
619 MP consumed

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There are many circumstances where you can use DS without a time penalty, the most common of which is before the tank has secured aggro on a trash pull. MP efficiency doesnt really matter so long as you dont exit the threshold of "enough MP". So long as you have "enough MP", time efficiency > MP efficiency.

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Regen + Asylum --> DPS
DPS begins at 2.5s (waiting for Regen to complete GCD, activate Asylum + Clerics during the GCD)
250 Potency / tick for 21s + 100 potency @ 24s
619 MP consumed (can make argument you gain 884MP since Asylum = 2 Cures)
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If you need to Divine Seal + Regen, you might as well Regen + Asylum for a higher potency HoT and slightly faster transition into Cleric Stance.
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If damage from pack exceeds how much Regen + Asylum can heal for, I can at least stay in Cleric's Stance longer due to higher potency HoT total versus Divine Seal + Regen.

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You cant really reliably fit more than 2 off GCD skills in regen's gcd. If one of those is cleric stance, that means you get one off GCD skill to pick. If regen is sufficient, why use Asylum if you have options like PoM and Swiftcast?
If regen is not sufficient, why not E4E?
Also, keep in mind that staying in cleric stance longer, isnt necessarily an optimization.

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Asylum ---> DPS
DPS begins at 1 second (0.5s animation delay for Asylum + 0.5s animation delay to activate Cleric Stance)
100 potency / tick for 24s
0 MP consumed (can make argument that you gained 884MP since Asylum = 2 Cures)
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Asylum alone allows me to begin DPSing faster than Regen by itself and is more MP efficient overall (impossible to beat 0 MP efficiency though).

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This would only be better than tetra if you were certain your tank would receive EVERY asylum tick.

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(can make argument that you gained 884MP since Asylum = 2 Cures)

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you could make the argument you gained ~890 MP with DS + regen, 3.4125 cures * 442 cure mp - 618 regen MP. (plus any additional from being able to benefit from natural restoration)

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Originally Posted by Nekotee

Not speaking about the tank/DPS who will litteraly SPRINT into the orbs until he trigger all explosion...
Making it impossible to heal between 2 explosion

Instead of just standing in the orbs path and taking them one at a time...

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BLACK MAGES EATING 3 ORBS IN A ROW WHILE SPRINTING, PLEASE STOP.

There's not many great places to use Asylum. Most fights have groups running all over the place, and it makes Asylum worthless to cast if no one's going to benefit. It's pretty great on A3 and Bismarck.

Divine seal is a different story. That's an emergency button when everyone's taking too much damage for me to deal with. (depending on the situation, i usually precede a divine seal with a swiftcast holy to stun the enemies so i can get a small headstart on a medica 2)

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Originally Posted by winsock

You cant really reliably fit more than 2 off GCD skills in regen's gcd. If one of those is cleric stance, that means you get one off GCD skill to pick. If regen is sufficient, why use Asylum if you have options like PoM and Swiftcast?
If regen is not sufficient, why not E4E?
Also, keep in mind that staying in cleric stance longer, isnt necessarily an optimization.

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Like how Asylum can be on cooldown, PoM, Swiftcast, and E4E can be on cooldown as well. WHM have a multitude of tools to use at their discretion and you should picking the right tool for the right job given what abilities are available. In some cases, Regen + CS + PoM IS the right call to make, in other cases Regen + Asylum + CS is the better call to make because the HPS requirement at that instance requires you to have 250 potency/tick of healing, not 150 potency/tick of healing.

Though explain to me how "staying in Cleric Stance longer isn't necessarily an optimization". You mentioned minor optimization in your post and if I wanted to optimize PoM into my rotation I'd probably end up doing Aero II --> Aero + Swiftcast --> Aero III + PoM ---> Stone III spam after I put Regen + Divine Seal + CS up.

Also, you either greatly overestimate E4E's use or you don't understand what it does. E4E is a 20% proc chance on the tank that can reduce the damage the monster does by 10% for 20s. This does nothing to the monster initially and needs time to proc so you may need more healing initially to offset the lower HPS requirement you'll gain later. Regen + E4E does not make up for what raw healing Regen + Asylum can bring to the table.

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Originally Posted by winsock

This would only be better than tetra if you were certain your tank would receive EVERY asylum tick.

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As a healer, we all eventually will have to make assumptions about how our tanks play. As much as it's up to us as a White Mage to place Asylum in a position where a tank can make use of it, it's up to a tank to move in such a way where they will optimize their location inside Asylum. If they cannot, oh well. It still doesn't make Asylum less effective, it just shows either ignorance or apathy from the tank you attempted to use Asylum on and doesn't take away from Asylum's use.

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Originally Posted by winsock

you could make the argument you gained ~890 MP with DS + regen, 3.4125 cures * 442 cure mp - 618 regen MP. (plus any additional from being able to benefit from natural restoration)

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Unfortunately, your logic is flawed.

Asylum is 100 potency/tick for 24 seconds. That's 800 potency over its duration.

Divine Seal ADDS 45 potency to Regen. Assuming you get a 36s duration (reapplying Regen as Divine Seal wears off) you get a total of 540 Potency over its duration (or the cost of 1.35 cures = 596.7 MP) on Regen alone. Of course Divine Seal doesn't only affect Regen but usually you want to Divine Seal + Regen ---> CS DPS --> Regen again as DS wears off on most trash so the DS benefit is usually lost when used like that.

Remember, you have to look at what each ability adds individually and inside a vacuum when comparing things. Using your logic, I can say Asylum + Regen = 250 potency/tick for 24 seconds for a total of 2,000 potency (or the cost of 5 cures = 2,210 MP) but that wasn't the point I was trying to make with my initial comment to you.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Like how Asylum can be on cooldown, PoM, Swiftcast, and E4E can be on cooldown as well. WHM have a multitude of tools to use at their discretion and you should picking the right tool for the right job given what abilities are available. In some cases, Regen + CS + PoM IS the right call to make, in other cases Regen + Asylum + CS is the better call to make because the HPS requirement at that instance requires you to have 250 potency/tick of healing, not 150 potency/tick of healing.

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I think you may have missed my initial post in this thread. There was never a point where I was arguing that Asylum was 'never' the correct choice. Just that there are many scenarios where Asylum is not a good choice, and I dont think we disagree here. This is in contrast to a skill like DS, which is almost always a good choice.

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Though explain to me how "staying in Cleric Stance longer isn't necessarily an optimization". You mentioned minor optimization in your post and if I wanted to optimize PoM into my rotation I'd probably end up doing Aero II --> Aero + Swiftcast --> Aero III + PoM ---> Stone III spam after I put Regen + Divine Seal + CS up.

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Again, this isn't black and white, it just "isn't necessarily an optimization". There are circumstances where it can be an optimization, such as while you're under the effects of a buff that will increase your dmg for a limited duration; however, that's not to say that delaying cleric stance is always an optimization, esp on trash. Delaying dropping cleric stance doesnt necessarily mean that you've lowered the amount of time you've had to spend out of cleric stance for a given fight.

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Also, you either greatly overestimate E4E's use or you don't understand what it does. E4E is a 20% proc chance on the tank that can reduce the damage the monster does by 10% for 20s. This does nothing to the monster initially and needs time to proc so you may need more healing initially to offset the lower HPS requirement you'll gain later. Regen + E4E does not make up for what raw healing Regen + Asylum can bring to the table.

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This really depends on the amount of incoming dps.

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it's up to a tank to move in such a way where they will optimize their location inside Asylum. If they cannot, oh well. It still doesn't make Asylum less effective

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Ummm... it what? That's pretty much a perfect example of something that makes Asylum "less effective".

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Unfortunately, your logic is flawed.

Asylum is 100 potency/tick for 24 seconds. That's 800 potency over its duration.

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That was intended to be a joke i.e. I spent MP and called it an MP gain. The flawed logic is taking a change of 0, calling it a gain, then assigning an arbitrary value for said 'gain' based on a completely different skill.

Hmm... Just so I understand better, what's the problem with Asylum to begin with? A ground HoT so? What's the matter here?

I love asylum. Medica 2 and regen and asylum
..you can't go wrong with that lol

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Originally Posted by winsock

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Welp, I think at this time we'll just need to agree to disagree. It's clear I won't be able to convenience you that Asylum is worth your time and you certainly won't convince me that Asylum is useless because there are better ways to optimize WHM.

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Originally Posted by Fevelle

Hmm... Just so I understand better, what's the problem with Asylum to begin with? A ground HoT so? What's the matter here?

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*Shrugs* I'm not sure either. To me it's underwhelming at only 100 potency / tick, but given it's free healing on a decently short cooldown, there's nothing really to hate about the ability short of skill bloat making your hotbars / crossbars too large.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Welp, I think at this time we'll just need to agree to disagree. It's clear I won't be able to convenience you that Asylum is worth your time and you certainly won't convince me that Asylum is useless because there are better ways to optimize WHM.

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Did you not read my post at all? Ive never once said asylum is useless. All I've been saying is that there are occasions where using Asylum is suboptimal.

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Originally Posted by winsock

Did you not read my post at all? Ive never once said asylum is useless. All I've been saying is that there are occasions where using Asylum is suboptimal.

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Did I say that you said it was useless? I did not. I said it wasn't worth your time as you've more or less been adamant that Asylum has always been and will always be suboptimal and thus you'll always have better plays to make in any given circumstance. To quote you:

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Originally Posted by winsock

I will be that guy for a sec and argue that sometimes is just plain better not using asylum.

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Yes, you did say:

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Originally Posted by winsock

Dont get me wrong, the skill is great when dealing with some niche scenarios like Bismarck's back, but many times its just not worth activating.

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But I do feel you undervalue the usefulness of an ability that is free healing every 90 seconds.

Hence my comment - let's agree to disagree. I don't think we'll be able to convince the other that our position is faulty and leave it at that.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

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to quote you quoting me:
"there are occasions where using Asylum is suboptimal"
"sometimes is just plain better not using asylum"
"many times its just not worth activating"

I'm unsure why you are convinced I believe this skill is worthless:

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It's clear I won't be able to convenience you that Asylum is worth your time

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This entire thread is about someone who is wondering if they should be judging WHM based on the frequency of use of their cooldowns. My very first post in this thread points out that there are very clear reasons 'not' to use asylum. In that very post, i clarified scenarios I was talking about:

"Most content isn't particularly healing or MP intensive. If DS + regen is enough for the tank, there's little point in using Asylum. In AoE scenarios, often I'd find myself encompassing everyone in Asylum, only to have some run out of it and require individual attn anyway. Whereas medica II or cure III would have sufficiently handled the situation in 1 cast."


You even state:

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In some cases, Regen + CS + PoM [not asylum] IS the right call to make, in other cases Regen + Asylum + CS is the better call

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I'm unsure how this is different from my initial entry:
"sometimes is just plain better not using asylum"

Unless its savage raid, I don't know how many times Asylum has been useful. From keeping a tank before the tankbuster while i heal a prey through in A1S, during the 5th, 7th, and 9th waves of A2S, the opening of A3S where I need to dps along with a regen, healing the tanks during the Hand of Phase, just its overall useful during the final phase of A4S and probably usefulness that will come in A4S. In savage, it's not as niche as one would think.

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Originally Posted by winsock

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Oh, I was never convinced that you felt the skill was worthless. What I was convinced is the fact that you felt there was a multitude of scenarios that you felt Asylum was trumped by another ability and thus Asylum should be considered a backburner ability at best. What most others and myself have been trying to argue is that Asylum is much more effective then you give it credit for. To quote you:

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Originally Posted by winsock

Not saying it isn't a good skill, just that it is niche enough to be worth not casting in many scenarios, and shouldn't be viewed in the same light as DS and PoM

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Originally Posted by winsock

There are many healing scenarios where Asylum is just excess, but also can't be used as a substitute. So unlike DS or PoM there are quite a few scenarios where cast Asylum is just wasteful.

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Originally Posted by winsock

All I'm trying to show is that there are numerous healing scenarios where not casting asylum is actually a small optimization, and that not casting asylum shouldn't be judged the same way as not using DS or PoM, because Asylum competes with other skills.

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There's a difference between "absolutely useless" and "low tier application" and if it seemed like I was implying you were saying it was useless, that most certainly wasn't my intent. I however do believe, given your quotes above, you are undervaluing the power of Asylum and most people on this thread who argued with you on that point do seem to agree. I just ask you re-consider your opinion about Asylum.

Perhaps look at it this way...

Asylum is twice as powerful as medica II. And it's free and oGCD.

How many people call medica II useless?

On a single target, Asylum is a potential 800 potency free heal. Even if you only get half of that value, what does it cost you? About a second of time to cast it and a 90 second CD.

Don't get me wrong, I'd certainly trade Asylum for a second Tetrabackgammon per minute in most scenarios, but you could do far worse than cast it on cooldown.

Yeah, after playing some more, I don't really see how you lose anything by casting Asylum, since there's no cast time or anything.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Perhaps look at it this way...

Asylum is twice as powerful as medica II. And it's free and oGCD.

How many people call medica II useless?

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No, it isn't twice as powerful as Medica II, stop smoking.
And you can't compare Asylum to medica with only the potency.

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Originally Posted by NamoNanamo

No, it isn't twice as powerful as Medica II, stop smoking.
And you can't compare Asylum to medica with only the potency.

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Ok, medica II has that front loaded part but if you don't nitpick and look at my point: No one considers medica II useless because the HoT component is "only" 50 potency per tick.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Ok, medica II has that front loaded part but if you don't nitpick and look at my point: No one considers medica II useless because the HoT component is "only" 50 potency per tick.

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I don't nitpick. You can't compare like that. Chose an another example.

You can say "the tick is twice as powerful as Medica II tick"
YOu can't say "Asylum is twice as powerful as Medica II" Cause, you need to take the number of tick plus 200 potency of the spell.

And you can't reduce MedicaII only to his potency/tick. You need to see the Whole spell

Well, if you continue with that, you also have to point out one is a GTAoE and the other is a PBAoE which are both situational, etc etc.

Really though, I was just trying to offer another way of looking at it. If people still want to ignore free healing... *shrug*

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Originally Posted by Menae

On a single target, Asylum is a potential 800 potency free heal. Even if you only get half of that value, what does it cost you? About a second of time to cast it and a 90 second CD.

Don't get me wrong, I'd certainly trade Asylum for a second Tetrabackgammon per minute in most scenarios, but you could do far worse than cast it on cooldown.

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I agree. I use Asylum but I would have loved something...different. Better? Less dependent on how inclined my tank is to stand in the dang thing or how much dodging a fight requires?

It can be great if I have two melee DPS who will also get the effect but two casters and I'm like *shrug, puts it down on tank*. At that high a level I don't feel like we should have a *shrug* worthy ability. I would have rather seen...anyone else play a guardian at one point in GW2? I didn't play the game long but I loved aspects of that support class. They had a move where they would cast an orb that floated in one direction and they could detonate it to heal the party or damage enemies. Something tactical like that might have been neat. Something you can place and it sits for up to 30 secs. Either you detonate it early to apply a dot heal to everyone in range or at the end off 30 secs it detonates itself. I don't know. Something. I'm neither enthused or ready to give up my healing stick over asylum. They can have Cure III though. I've literally used that like four times in six months and had zero issues in dungeons. Take cure III and give me something else. *makes grabby hands*

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Originally Posted by BroodingFicus

I agree. I use Asylum but I would have loved something...different. Better? Less dependent on how inclined my tank is to stand in the dang thing or how much dodging a fight requires?

It can be great if I have two melee DPS who will also get the effect but two casters and I'm like *shrug, puts it down on tank*. At that high a level I don't feel like we should have a *shrug* worthy ability. I would have rather seen...anyone else play a guardian at one point in GW2? I didn't play the game long but I loved aspects of that support class. They had a move where they would cast an orb that floated in one direction and they could detonate it to heal the party or damage enemies. Something tactical like that might have been neat. Something you can place and it sits for up to 30 secs. Either you detonate it early to apply a dot heal to everyone in range or at the end off 30 secs it detonates itself. I don't know. Something. I'm neither enthused or ready to give up my healing stick over asylum. They can have Cure III though. I've literally used that like four times in six months and had zero issues in dungeons. Take cure III and give me something else. *makes grabby hands*

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If you have experienced the mist weaver spec playing wow you might reconsider the floating orb mechanic. Any mechanic that involves hoping someone will walk over it for a effect minus stacking abilities will only cause frustration.

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Originally Posted by BroodingFicus

It can be great if I have two melee DPS who will also get the effect but two casters and I'm like *shrug, puts it down on tank*. At that high a level I don't feel like we should have a *shrug* worthy ability.

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SCH says hi with Dissipation.
AST says hi with Celestial Opposition.
PLD says hi with Clemency.
BRD says hi with Warden's Peaen.
NIN says hi with Smokescreen.

Point being, almost every job has their situational skills that are sometimes *shrug* worthy. That doesn't mean they are useless; speaking as a healer, anything that can mitigate damange or provide free healing to a respectable level is worthy of being used in my book.

Also, don't you dare touch my Cure III. It is a godsend in end-game tiers.

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Originally Posted by BroodingFicus

I agree. I use Asylum but I would have loved something...different. Better?

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Asylum is amazing in end game content. In A1S you can throw it on a tank and with regen you can basically forget about that tank for a few seconds and do some dps. In A2S the two tanks are always very close so you can heal both with it, in A3S it's always useful during splash since the whole party in gathered around the boss, in A4S you place it under the manipulator and heal tanks and melees. In other words, Asylum is great in well organized parties...I think it's the best skill out of the 5 new skills the WHM got in HW, but to really understand its usefulness you need to take into account how it works in end game.

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Originally Posted by tjw

AST says hi with Celestial Opposition.

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AST says hi with Stella. (fixed that for you)

But in all honesty, Stella is the -most- useless skill of the game outside of PVP. Celestial Opposition is a GREAT umbrella for when sh** hits the fan: not also it stuns all enemies, it also prolongs the refresh effect of LA and the most important: it gives you a 50% bonus duration to Lightspeed.

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Originally Posted by Fevelle

AST says hi with Stella. (fixed that for you)

But in all honesty, Stella is the -most- useless skill of the game outside of PVP. Celestial Opposition is a GREAT umbrella for when sh** hits the fan: not also it stuns all enemies, it also prolongs the refresh effect of LA and the most important: it gives you a 50% bonus duration to Lightspeed.

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Brooding was talking more skills given in level 50-60 range. And Celestial Opposition's effect is far too underwhelming for its cooldown. The stun doesn't work on relevant bosses; in fact, the stun component shouldn't even be a perk considering that it provides barely any mitigation with just one application. I'd say the biggest use so far of CO is to extend LA; extending Lightspeed is nice, however, due to the nature of Lightspeed, you're only reducing mana costs, not increasing your healing throughput. So in that sense, CO is really just a resource manager, a meagre one at that.

Stella is pretty useful in alex3 to slow the adds and help some slowbrained DPS to do their job and avoid some overheal from healer...

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Originally Posted by Nekotee

Stella is pretty useful in alex3 to slow the adds and help some slowbrained DPS to do their job and avoid some overheal from healer...

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It's still far beyond the other two skills with the same purpose on this example: Stone and Miasma 2.

I would say that it's the same as stone... (But prettier animation)
And yes miasma II is far greater (spriiiint and spam !)