How do you think the WHM Lilies work?

So I was once upon a time a WHM main, then switched to tanking (I had gotten dismayed by utility like others, but this isn't about that) - and after watching the ability video, WHM has me positively intreagued; so much so that I'm prepping it's gear for stormblood.

While it's easy to panic and focus on the potential disappearance of Stoneskin, and the underwhelming translation of "still pure healing", we did see something almost ENTIRELY unique when it came to WHM - the Lily Battle Guage (BG).

Most of the BGs we saw were fancy depictions of things classes already have, but the lilies are an entirely new battle mechanic for WHM.

They mentioned they affect cast speed and allow for certain skills to be cast. What if it's like Greased Lightning for WHM? Can I now pound out Stone casts like a bullet train?

(sorry for the double post, having trouble editing on mobile)

Or do the lilies augment skill effects the more you have? 1 Lily adds a 5% dmg buff to Regen effects, 2 adds 7%, 3 adds 10!

What if they let you reboot a skills cool down? Can I continually refresh Presence of Mind? Or Swiftcast and pull off a Multi-res in a matter of seconds? Building more lilies that may fuel an MP Regen skill that lets me keep up with those costs?

And what awesome skill is going to require the use of all 3 of these valuable flowers that you build up?

Some of this is probably unlikely, but with so little to go on so far, who can tell? It's entirely possible that SQE is still tweaking WHM and didn't want to disclose too much about how the new one would work.

But what do you think? How do you think the flowers work?

When charged it uses the power of all the salt from whm forums to grant immortality to the whole group for 5 minutes... XD

Weehee, finally a post after lurking around for oh so long~

It can go so so so many ways. We know basically nothing - not even how they're generated at this point in time. Just the short video to guess with.

I have two fears - one is that they only tie one or two situational skills to it, making it kinda bland or restrictive in use, like it was tacked on just so they could give WHM some sort of UI graphic like they gave everyone else.

The other is that they tie multiple abilities to it, and tack on a decent MP restorative effect to only *one* of those abilities, lending people to almost always use that specific ability unless they straight up have to use another for a mechanic.

There are lots of ways to make it unique and interesting, though.

One I've been toying with my head is simple - tie multiple abilities with short CDs to them, and allow consumption of lilies to buff or augment those. For sake of ease, say that using them consumes all available lilies. In this scenario, I've thought of the lilies generating slowly automatically, but having a chance to gain one when casting spells/healing - this would ensure you're never completely out of luck with them while also adding some randomness to it so it doesn't get to be 100% planned. Maybe you get crappy luck, 0 procs, and it takes 60s to get 3 lilies. Maybe you get some luck and find you already have 3 at 47s, stuff like that. Similar to WotLK Maelstrom weapon, kinda, anyone familiar with WoW's enhancement shamans (Do they even still have that? It's been yeeeeears).

Now imagine Asylum, Assize, this new supposed barrier thingy, and perhaps even tetra if you feel like it are all on 20-30s cooldowns and consume the lilies.

One of Asylum's issues is how rough it can be to keep people in it for the duration, sometimes turning it into little more than a tank HoT, right? Consider Asylum being 6y radius at 1 lily, 9 at 2, and 12 at 3 (Bigger than sacred soil, I think?), potentially making it more useful as a substitute medica II for much of a raid, or dropping it more often for a heavy tank hitting fight at the cost of using other abilities. Consider Assize growing in strength, maybe something like 150 -> 225 -> 300 potency for each lily consumed (And drop the MP return if we're getting that addressed some other way). New skills we don't know anything about? Give them a similar line of thought.

By all means, toss a MP return on using the lilies if you feel like it. I'd rather it be tied to its own ability at that point rather than a specific healing one, though. I'm really not a fan of Assize having MP tied to it already, as it greatly encourages you to use it off CD, or close to that as to not lose a potential +10% MP window throughout a fight, unless there are specific instances where the gain from a smart use is > that 10% MP.

Regardless of how you tinker with numbers (potencies, ranges, building lilies, etc), I like the idea of a system that has you constantly wondering which of these healing-related-skills might be best used at every point in time, and never having it down to a snooze-fest of 100% calculated usage times like we often do with strict CDs independant of each other. Smart use of such abilities would be a way a WHM could heal efficiently, ties these lilies to the whole "pure healer" line we keep hearing, and could let them always keep ticking somewhat even when low on MP.

Consider that they've mentioned spell speed from the lilies too, and you have a potential reason not to want to use them. They better make such a spell speed gain noticeable, though. Something like 2, 4, and 6% isn't gonna cut it.

Would that necessarily fix every issue people are concerned about? Utility and the like? Not necessarily by any means. But I think it'd be enjoyable, and would be a more interesting way of addressing MP than just giving WHM a bigger MP button to push. I already like mixing up my approach every 20-30s depending on which abilities are coming off cooldown.

You could also make the abilities usable at 0 lilies, just, you know - weaker, so you'd rather not - that brings the issue of making sure people just don't pop everything off cooldown at 0 for maximum potential HPS, though. Can work around that, mind you, even if you make everything share a short cooldown, but it's just something that would have to be addressed.

Do note this is just one potential idea I've been playing with internally. There are many, many more that could be more useful or more interesting. And of course, anything resulting from it would ideally be balanced around the other healers' kits, before anyone mentions something about too much potential HPS blowing everything out of whack~

I do not feel we'll get something along these lines, though. I imagine a simple charge-system where certain abilities cost 1, 2, or 3 lilies, and that's it.

So far the only thing I've read on here/reddit is your cast-times decrease as you gain lilies but looking at the cast time of Stone IV in the showcase it isn't very promising. Aero 2 seems to be insta-cast though?
Oh and all 3 lilies are consumed by the skill that buffed/barriered/ackshuallyjusthealed the BLM.

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Originally Posted by DuskTS

So far the only thing I've read on here/reddit is your cast-times decrease as you gain lilies but looking at the cast time of Stone IV in the showcase it isn't very promising. Aero 2 seems to be insta-cast though?
Oh and all 3 lilies are consumed by the skill that buffed/barriered/ackshuallyjusthealed the BLM.

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Whatever it does, it also gets the mob along with allies.

Yoshi already said it's a barrier.
Probably weaker than SCHs even.

It's accumulated by healing.

That's it.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

Yoshi already said it's a barrier.
Probably weaker than SCHs even.

It's accumulated by healing.

That's it.

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Not quite. They're supposed to have a chance to increase spell casting speed as you accumulate them and you can expend them to create a barrier.

I think some skills are gonna be tied to the Lillies, consuming some or all of them depending on the power of the spell. What I noticed in Yoshida's UI was that Cure III was greyed out, and I think I saw the Cure III animation in the job skills video, immediately followed by three Lillies disappearing. So I think Cure III will consume three Lillies, and the barrier thing will consume one Lilly. They might even increase the potency and range of Cure III to compensate for its more restricted use, making it a more powerful spell in general.

There's a bunch of other new spells WHM casted that I have absolutely no idea what they could do, so that's as far as my speculation goes.

I'm not quite sure what they mean by a chance at a reduced cast time. I'm hoping it's more along the lines of the more lilies you have, the faster you get. I freakin love PoM, and while I know we can't be like that 100% of the time, I am all about spell speed, especially on WHM.

The ability that consumes the gauge is very interesting, and it surprises me that not many bring up how all targets are effected (allies and mob) when it is consumed. I don't even really have any ideas what this would do, but for some reason I have this feeling that something fairly good is coming for WHM that is hard to see. It's been tossed around a little that WHM's compensating for lack of utility with damage might be the way to go, and I'm leaning towards that as well.

No idea how it will work, but I do know that if I ever play whm, everytime I do something that uses up a Lily I am going to be thinking in my head "Time to shake the dew off the lily!"

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Originally Posted by Gemina

The ability that consumes the gauge is very interesting, and it surprises me that not many bring up how all targets are effected (allies and mob) when it is consumed. I don't even really have any ideas what this would do, but for some reason I have this feeling that something fairly good is coming for WHM that is hard to see. It's been tossed around a little that WHM's compensating for lack of utility with damage might be the way to go, and I'm leaning towards that as well.

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What is this WHM positivity?! THE WORLD IS ENDING, DIDN'T YOU HEAR?

:P

That said, imagine if WHM can do a little Trick Attack-like debuff!

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Originally Posted by Gemina

The ability that consumes the gauge is very interesting, and it surprises me that not many bring up how all targets are effected (allies and mob) when it is consumed. I don't even really have any ideas what this would do, but for some reason I have this feeling that something fairly good is coming for WHM that is hard to see..

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One thing I liked that we got in 3.0 was assize, the ability to do multiple things with Assize. we are able to perform multiple tasks at once, in fact that's what I enjoy about WHM in general. I think going on this route will be what Barrier is for. I did not notice it on the mob and the caster. I'll go back and look.

I do see that after all the lilies were gone that he buffed the BLM, and the stone had a small white flicker on it, but I believe (and I'm always ready to be wrong) but it looks like it's not from the DoTs like I thought but whatever he used prior to depleting the flowers.

This is the small section I'm looking at..

https://clips.twitch.tv/PleasantTire...hopperPipeHype

@ :25, that another heal? Or is that some sort of buff? it's what he uses at 34 seconds into that video that shows something hitting the mob. Is that what people think barrier is? Maybe I'm getting confused too early in the morning..

Not arguing, simply trying to understand.

My guess is the blue particle effects on the target dummy is just the Aero dots expiring, just happening to line up with other skills.

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Originally Posted by Reivya

My guess is the blue particle effects on the target dummy is just the Aero dots expiring, just happening to line up with other skills.

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From a closer look at the video id say you're right on the money. It looks to me like the DoTs are expiring. If you notice, the dummy gets red puffs of damage indicating the ticks, there's a blue "shine" (before the 3 Lily spell), a red tick, and then another blue "shine" (with the 3 Lily spell) and then the red ticks stop altogether.

This means the blue shine are the 2 DoTs finishing (Aero 2 & 3) and the target being "relieved" of the ailment. The timing with the 3 Lily spell is a coincidence - doesn't affect the dummy.

However, this also tells us that Aero 2 & 3 last a similar, if not the same, amount of time now. So at least Aero 2 lasts longer now.

It would be neat if the WHM had another skill that affected allies and enemies (like assize). I could have seen the 3 Lily spell applying Vulnerability Down for Allies and Vulnerability Up on enemies, inspiring team mates to charge the now weak spirited enemy. (In fact, a series of WHM skills centred around manipulating "the spirit" would fit right in for the class imo).

Still won't save the DRG

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Originally Posted by Leigaon

Snip.

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Thanks for the upload! After watching it a kagillion times and slowing it down, I've been able to get a better idea of what is going on. I agree with the previous posters who noticed that it is very likely the aero dots wearing off. Hard to tell with the first pulse like effect since the WHM is using their ability at the same time, but if you listen closely to the second one, you can hear the sound effect for when a debuff clears. Mr. Happy's WHM video mentioned that the only thing the devs have stated about this lily consuming ability is that it is some kind of barrier. Whether or not this gives WHM some of the utility others are asking for will have to wait until we get our hands on it.

The break down of what I see:
*note* WHM starts off with one lily in the gauge
- Divine seal, or whatever it is going to be called now. *note* It has Divine Seal's animation, but a different sound effect. It could be something else entirely.
- Cure spell (lily proc). *note* I took video of my own WHM casting cures 1-3. It is neither of those. Possible Cure 4. The lily procs during the cast, and should also note the WHM gains some kind of buff. The effect happens after the lily proc.
- Aero 3
- Aero 2. *note* It appears the devs have combined the very best of both aero 1 and 2. The possibility that they combined potencies, and made it instant exists. It also seems to have the same duration as Aero 3. If all this were true. Wow!
- Stone IV
- AoE buff or heal. *note* I believe this is the same ability we see in the Benchmark trailer
- Self buff
- Cure (lily proc) *note* same cure as previous, and lily procs in the same manner. However this time no self buff proc.
- Cure 3
- Lily consumption ability
- Rescue

One more note I will add is that it could be varied play speeds, but I've looked at the video at normal speed on several devices, and on each one this WHM is seriously fast.

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Originally Posted by Fernosaur

What is this WHM positivity?! THE WORLD IS ENDING, DIDN'T YOU HEAR?

:P

That said, imagine if WHM can do a little Trick Attack-like debuff!

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I'm one of the few that has remained optimistic that is for sure :p

Probably not a trick attack, but I believe WHM has an ace up their sleeve. We'll see!

A part of me feels as if it will require 3 full lillies to cast Benediction or perhaps Tetragrammaton. That could be a good or a bad thing honestly. However I also feel as if the lillies will only effect new spells. With the possibility of losing Protect, Cleric Stance, Esuna, Shroud of Saints, Divine Seal, Stoneskin and Stoneskin II (7 skills), it's reasonable to believe the lillies may only effect things we don't know yet.

I was under the idea that the Lillies were a way to gate Cure III, but upon closer examination, I realized that I was mistaking Cure III's icon for something else. I'm not entirely sure what this spell is, though.

From the skill trailer, I was sure Cure III consumed some of the Lillies, though. Maybe you can choose to expend them to power up your healing?

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Originally Posted by BlueMageQuina

A part of me feels as if it will require 3 full lillies to cast Benediction or perhaps Tetragrammaton.

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Possibly, although bene and tetra are both available ready to use on Yoshi-P's hotbar when he has no lilies. Strangely esuna is not, is it possible that esuna can not be used on yourself anymore?
There are 3 new skills with blue icons, water spells. One is lit up and provides a self-buff but no idea if it can target another player. Another skill is dimmed out and when used on the BLM in the showcase to me indicated a 'swap' of sorts, whether that's health, status effects or mana I believe it is transferred from WHM to the target due to the animation order. No lilies are consumed however 2 lilies are available before it was used. The final skill is the 'barrier' which consumed all Lilies available. It's very possible this skill can be used with just a single flower for a weaker shield.

I'm probably completely off the mark about most of these especially the idea of swapping (although imagine being able to gift another player with your raid debuff).

Even assuming Lilies reduced (re)cast time, lowered mana consumption and increased damage it seems antithetical to the current content design/WHM playstyle in which you rely on regen ticks, medica and tetra to perform bulk of healing.
Ideally you want 3 flowers at all times to self-buff your DPS output and rely on the actual barrier classes to provide mitigation. Even if you put your barrier on a Tank at best it would save them from using a cooldown to mitigate, it wouldn't save you from spending the next 3 GCDs overcuring to get your flowers back. I'd like to hope that you can grow flowers pre-pull for the best opener otherwise that's 3 GCDs you're going to be behind on compared to the other Healers.

The more I speculate the worse everything seems. I will wait for real info to smash my worries into oblivion and make WHM meta again.

Soiled it.

My thoughts for having the lilies is that each lilly stacks a mp regen/and or/spell speed buff on the whm. The mp regen would be especially nice since, outside of utility, WHM seems to lack really good mp management. This way using the lilies up costs the WHM something and allows them to put neat little effects on the skills.

I was hoping the lillies has something to do with the lack of stoneskin on yoshi p's bar. Here is my thoughts:

Cure 1 will no longer proc a cure 2 for free. Instead it proc's a barrier like stoneskin but only when hp is healed. Each time this procs (or x amount of times) it can build a lilly. You can use up a single lilly to activate this proc ignoring the condition that hp needs to be healed and guarantees the stoneskin effect.

Cure 2 can use up 2 lilies and grant a boosted regen to the target.

Cure 3 can use up all 3 of the lilies to cast the AoE Stoneskin effect but get this. Since it's tied to a resource it now can be used in battle because you're trading your lilly resource for it. This alone adds some utility to WHM and takes a skill that was situational at best at gives it more uses.

This is just my two cents on the matter and I can't wait to see what actually comes from it.

-Keyo Reinhart

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Originally Posted by Gemina

I'm one of the few that has remained optimistic that is for sure :p

Probably not a trick attack, but I believe WHM has an ace up their sleeve. We'll see!

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I believe so too. I am so excited. It's like waiting for Christmas morning.

I wonder if the lilies will work like the monks greased lightning? You know, get everything powered up so you can be either fast or have a super powerful kick. In the case of white mages, either shorter casting times or a potent mitigation spell.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

I believe so too. I am so excited. It's like waiting for Christmas morning.

I wonder if the lilies will work like the monks greased lightning? You know, get everything powered up so you can be either fast or have a super powerful kick. In the case of white mages, either shorter casting times or a potent mitigation spell.

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Meh

https://gamerescape.com/2017/05/30/f...lysis-healers/

The lillies actually do something much different than we thought.

https://gamerescape.com/2017/05/30/f...lysis-healers/

Based on procs of cure 1 and cure 2, they reduce the cooldowns of the main WHM kit when you use that one ability (Benediction, Asylum, Assize, and the new stormblood moves.) Also, the new lvl 62 ability Thin AIr, reduces Mana Cost to 0 so basically a much stronger lightspeed in terms of mp management and without the damage reduction so you can just spam the hell out of holy.

However, I do so some problem in terms of plenary indulgence and the confession stacks in that none of the Whm's aoe gives them. Hopefully this is reworked or added in a later patch.

/sigh

If there is the actual healing gameplay to support it the stuff WHM has will be amazing. My doubts is that the gameplay will be there. WHM has arguably less utility now. I can only cast a single shield now and even with traits and Lilies its one shield every 45 seconds or so with a strength of 15% max health.

I don't think this is going to solve any of the balance issues.

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Originally Posted by Belhi

/sigh

If there is the actual healing gameplay to support it the stuff WHM has will be amazing. My doubts is that the gameplay will be there. WHM has arguably less utility now. I can only cast a single shield now and even with traits and Lilies its one shield every 45 seconds or so with a strength of 15% max health.

I don't think this is going to solve any of the balance issues.

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This is the issue, if the other 2 healers didn't receive extra healing then at what point will it be necessary. The only benefit from all this is that WHM can heal easier and quicker while still going full out on dps. If this is the way they want to go, but will players accept this is over utility is the question.

Honestly I am not sure how much additional dps WHM's are going to offer above what they can sustain with their current heals. The lvl 70 skill is reliant on building Confession stacks on targets which requires casting cure on them so its a lot of build up for it to be useful. Unless there is a lot more incoming damage I don't see many of these new mechanics being particularly needed. Even building Lilies requires casting Cure and Cure 2 and in a lot of content your not going to be doing that that much since regen and Medica 2 covers most basic healing.

AST on the other hand still has its buffs but now cards it cant use can be turned into a 500 pot heal or a 300 pot attack.

Yeah, honestly I am feeling rather underwhelmed but we will see when they are finally seen in action. It will require quite a change to the gameplay for WHM's new skills to be that useful over what we already have.

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Originally Posted by Slaine_Fray

This is the issue, if the other 2 healers didn't receive extra healing then at what point will it be necessary. The only benefit from all this is that WHM can heal easier and quicker while still going full out on dps. If this is the way they want to go, but will players accept this is over utility is the question.

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Thank you for posting that link! What SE is doing to the healers is exciting!

As for you analysis, that's what I've been feeling for awhile. Players complain about WHMs having no utility while overlooking their ability to dps more. DPS is utility; maybe not as flashy as a crit buff, but still of use to the party. If that is where SE wants to take us WHMs, so be it.

Off topic: Man, how will Astrologians keep track of all their stuff?

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Originally Posted by Belhi

The lvl 70 skill is reliant on building Confession stacks on targets which requires casting cure on them so its a lot of build up for it to be useful.

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This was my thought as well. The low CD on the skill itself is nice, and it will at least have some impact for tank healing, but I question how useful it will be as an additional AoE heal when Confession stacks in the pre-launch client last only for 30 seconds and are acquired only through single-target healing.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

Thank you for posting that link! What SE is doing to the healers is exciting!

As for you analysis, that's what I've been feeling for awhile. Players complain about WHMs having no utility while overlooking their ability to dps more. DPS is utility; maybe not as flashy as a crit buff, but still of use to the party. If that is where SE wants to take us WHMs, so be it.

Off topic: Man, how will Astrologians keep track of all their stuff?

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I am not entirely convinced that WHMs are going to be able to dps sufficiently more to make up for the lack of other utilities. Do remember AST can turn rubbish cards into a 300 pot strike. That's as hard as Assize hits and on a lower cd. The only advantage is we have one extra DoT now.

Well in order to use the lord and lady cards, you have to use draw, and then minor arcana in order to use them but that's 30 seconds so if you're getting ewers you can turn them into this.

Another is as stated by others, lilies and confession stacks are entirely based on using cure 1 and cure 2. None of the aoes that the WHM has can give them. So you could be having really bad luck and getting of either and since confession only lasts 30 seconds, it may not last long enough. It's a nice short cd but it will probably used more for single target healing than aoe.

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Originally Posted by Belhi

I am not entirely convinced that WHMs are going to be able to dps sufficiently more to make up for the lack of other utilities. Do remember AST can turn rubbish cards into a 300 pot strike. That's as hard as Assize hits and on a lower cd. The only advantage is we have one extra DoT now.

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Our DoTs are constant damage whereas the AST strikes are burst. My gut is telling me (for what its worth) it'll all balance out. In the end, does it really matter that much? Just how meta is your average raider? I'd hope they would just be happy to have a healer.:D

But, we are getting off topic and I really don't have the experience in raiding in FFXIV to back up what I'm saying. I'm a minor league healer and I'll shut up now.

How do they work? Poorly!