WHM 1-2-3

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Personally I'd rather see most of the cast times on spells reduced to 1.5s so we have the option to have weave windows around the DPS 1-2-3, Holy, Cure 2, or Medica 2 depending on what you need more of at the moment. The only way that'd work is if most of the insta cast spells became OGCD along with possibly turning Fluid Aura into a OGCD damage spell allowing us the flexibility to go towards a more DPS or healing focused spell casting as the situation warrants it.

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I mean if you want that AST is right there. And it does a solid job at remaining distinct. White Mage doesn’t need to copy it. I also wouldn’t mind having to pay the weave tax on Scholar if it was actually viable to use Ruin II, as that opens up DPS oGCD opportunities on them, which fits with their generally fiddlier toolkit. To me White Mage’s Lily system just needs more supplemental GCD options around it, whether that’s heal + damage, supplementary movement/weaving options, and/or a retuning of their current oGCDs to better support their GCD focus. WHM’s lower APM is something I’d rather keep intact relative to AST and SCH too, even if the game sped up. Sage I suspect might work out similar to what you’re hoping for, though its ‘oGCD DPS action’ will likely be a cleric stance rehash that you may balance against potentially similar healing or mitigation stances, juggling all of them to flex your access to certain cooldowns or resources in a pinch. How that core avoids being a tax laden mess remains to be seen.

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

I mean if you want that AST is right there. And it does a solid job at remaining distinct. White Mage doesn’t need to copy it.

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So how might White Mage design go about solving the Clipmage problem? 1.5 second casts is just an easy, if lazy way to do it. While it doesn't necessarily have to happen the same way, "having the ability to weave your oGCDs" also isn't some Astrologian-exclusive identity. It's the hallmark of a class that's actually designed to flow well.

I'd say WHM just needs more instant GCD's. Lilies helped, but are far from enough and using your healing toolkit just to move isn't really enjoyable. It's less of a decision making and more trying to mitigate bad design and dump healing on your co-heal.

But there could be plenty of ideas like making Assize an instant GCD with 2 charges, making Misery cost 1 blood Lily so you can fire more off, making an instant GCD proc that detonates the remaining duration of Dia and so on. If WHM is to have an identity of taking advantage of weave windows, it needs to actually have proper windows.

I'd be ok with the 1.5 treatment, but it would mean significantly bumping up WHM's oGCD kit so it actually has use for infinite weave slots. Which could be fine too, done right.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

So how might White Mage design go about solving the Clipmage problem? 1.5 second casts is just an easy, if lazy way to do it. While it doesn't necessarily have to happen the same way, "having the ability to weave your oGCDs" also isn't some Astrologian-exclusive identity. It's the hallmark of a class that's actually designed to flow well.

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That's been one of the problems with the WHM class for a while now... it just doesn't flow very well.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

So how might White Mage design go about solving the Clipmage problem? 1.5 second casts is just an easy, if lazy way to do it. While it doesn't necessarily have to happen the same way, "having the ability to weave your oGCDs" also isn't some Astrologian-exclusive identity. It's the hallmark of a class that's actually designed to flow well.

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Well, like I said, White Mage’s Lily system needs more GCDs to supplement it. To me it’s done via a combination of instant GCD spells with soft cooldowns. Ideally these additional options would have other purposes to facilitate their use. As an example, Aero III comes to mind as an option that could return. Tune it so it equals Glare on a single target and make it instant cast and retain its AoE component, but lower the DoT duration to 6 or 9s so it can be a frequent but not sole contributor, while also serving the purpose of improving WHM’s AoE DPS and weaving options.

Another option would be a spell with assize-like effects and charges. It could have single target and AoE variants but distinguish itself by working off of an excog-like trigger, where the heal is applied the next time the target takes any damage (meaning shields and PLD/GNB invul CDs can buffer its application). The single target version due to targeting limitations would buff an ally with a burst bomb around the initial target of their next attack. This would serve to add to WHM’s DPS and healing potential on fights with certain periods of downtime as well as add to their burst healing potential when prepared properly or serve as a Rapture alternative in situations where that is at its best.

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

That's been one of the problems with the WHM class for a while now... it just doesn't flow very well.

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Absolutely. And the relative lack of oGCDs doesn't even help that terrible flow. You probably already know these things, but for the benefit of anyone else reading: Presence of Mind is not only an oGCD that needs a weave space to use, but it also goofily pushes you forward a non-whole number of GCDs that misaligns your new GCD timer from your currently ticking cooldowns. Plenary not only requires you to use GCD heals to proc it, but it requires you to pre-cast it using a weave window before you GCD heal, so you can't even really use a lily properly to create that window unless you have more than one. Need to use Benediction on that Dark Knight? Haha screw you, you've got 20 seconds on that Dia timer. Better blow a lily uselessly healing the tank you're already going to full cure, or just clip it! Assize being 45 seconds means it only lines up with every second Dia, so you need to create a window to weave it elsewhere. Or just clip it. Lucid hogs one of your two precious weave spaces every time it comes up. Benison would feel like more of a usable choice-creating tool than it does if you could just weave it at your leisure instead of trying to cram it into one of your few openings when you can spare it. Or clipping it. Big roomwide AOE coming up? Oh good, Dia's got 15 seconds left. Better clip that Temperance in, gosh it must be nice to play an Astro who can just use their entire kit whenever they see an enemy castbar show up.

White Mage has the hilarious reputation of the "reactive" healer, but its crapass cliptastic gameplay requires way more preplanning than the "proactive" healers just to properly weave its abilities in. Your oGCDs can't be reactive in the slightest unless you just give up all pretense of riding your GCD.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Absolutely. And the relative lack of oGCDs doesn't even help that terrible flow. You probably already know these things, but for the benefit of anyone else reading: Presence of Mind is not only an oGCD that needs a weave space to use, but it also goofily pushes you forward a non-whole number of GCDs that misaligns your new GCD timer from your currently ticking cooldowns. Plenary not only requires you to use GCD heals to proc it, but it requires you to pre-cast it using a weave window before you GCD heal, so you can't even really use a lily properly to create that window unless you have more than one. Need to use Benediction on that Dark Knight? Haha screw you, you've got 20 seconds on that Dia timer. Better blow a lily uselessly healing the tank you're already going to full cure, or just clip it! Assize being 45 seconds means it only lines up with every second Dia, so you need to create a window to weave it elsewhere. Or just clip it. Lucid hogs one of your two precious weave spaces every time it comes up. Benison would feel like more of a usable choice-creating tool than it does if you could just weave it at your leisure instead of trying to cram it into one of your few openings when you can spare it. Or clipping it. Big roomwide AOE coming up? Oh good, Dia's got 15 seconds left. Better clip that Temperance in, gosh it must be nice to play an Astro who can just use their entire kit whenever they see an enemy castbar show up.

White Mage has the hilarious reputation of the "reactive" healer, but its crapass cliptastic gameplay requires way more preplanning than the "proactive" healers just to properly weave its abilities in. Your oGCDs can't be reactive in the slightest unless you just give up all pretense of riding your GCD.

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That's a large reason why I want to move to a system where we have short cast times and a bunch of OGCDs as that gives WHM the most flexibility possible... without needing to clip every single spell....

I'm not for every class to be the same but...
AST 1,5s cast exist because it used to clip like hell remember ?
So that's not entirely a "AST thing" to begin with.

Just a reminder.

Casters and ranged shouldn’t get 1-2-3 (yes MCH has one but I’ve said many times MCH isn’t very good)

BLM is more procs and teeter stuff aswell as some movement spice added, RDM is teetering and procs aswell as a finisher which makes sense cuz it’s a RDM, SMN is more dot management and preservation. BRD has procs and dots, DNC has 1-2 shabbiness and Procs.

So naturally WHM (or most healers) should be split and have more tame rotations like how tanks have bare minimums for 1-2-3. One with Dot manganent, one with proc juggling, on with teetering, and one with movement hindrance ie leylines. Idk just a idea but their attacks should be simple forms of casters and ranged not physical melee

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Originally Posted by RopeDrink

Mine ain't.

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Honestly, if you think that WHM has a lot of buttons you should just add another hotbar and adjust your keybinds. I don't even think that SCH has enough buttons, WHM is even simpler because a lot of their abilities are used almost nowhere so you don't need them.

https://i.imgur.com/2oZknSf.png

This is how my hotbar looks like for SCH, the alleged healer with too many buttons. I still have 5 free slots in the three hot bars I use for combat and I even put Physick down.

WHM needs even less space than SCH. I am on my alt right now so I can't take a screenshot of my half-empty action bar when I play WHM.