I mean, isn't a single target lily burning 30s cooldown Damage Shield ability a bit lacking compared to the other healers? Why not make it like this instead:
1 Lily: Works exactly as it does now.
2 Lilies: Cooldown is reduced by 10s.
3 Lilies: Cooldown is increased by 10s and has an AoE effect 20y around the target.
Divine Benison will also stack with other Damage Shields.
Edit: Was not aware Divine Benison got reduced cooldown from lily stacks. Could've sworn it didn't before...
Should Divine Benison be improved?
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10-20-2017, 07:24 PMJoe777Should Divine Benison be improved?
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10-20-2017, 08:06 PMKabzy
It's fine as it is. Though it may be miniscule, it does add a CD reduction based on the number of Lillies you use up like all the other abilities.
Making it AoE is a no no. WHM is not a shielder and actually it wouldn't synergise well with its co-healer. Shields don't stack, and a WHM using an AoE shield would be useless unless they were paired with a D.AST, which generally never happens. -
10-20-2017, 08:45 PMSebazy
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but Benison is the only oGCD barrier in the game? It’s also pretty powerful on a tank, it’s also unique in being percentage based rather than reliant on actually healing (which makes it quite potent the moment infirmity style debuffs come into play).
So lilys aside, I think it’s actually pretty decent.
The only issue I have with it is it requiring lilys to actually use. There’s nothing more annoying than having to waste GCDs to have it ready for stuff like Tera slash or O4s in general, whilst there’s always that risk of firing off Assize on CD or a clutch Tetra only to shoot yourself in the foot and be left unable to Benison in time. Kind of limits how dependable it is =\ -
10-20-2017, 10:35 PMTridus
The ability itself is pretty good, I think, as it fills in a gap without overly stepping on the toes of the other healers, and that it's oGCD makes it pretty unique. It's the requirement for a lily that hinders it when no other skill has one, as that gets you stuck in situations where you either can't use your other lily consuming skills without locking out DB, have to cast a largely pointless cure to be able to use DB, or can't use DB because you just also used Tetra/Assize.
The only adjustment I'd want to see, really, is making it work like every other skill that uses lilies and work without one, but at full cooldown. -
10-20-2017, 10:46 PMExiled_Tonberry
Like others have said before, the ability itself is great. The requirement of at least one Lily is not.
And be careful what you ask for, because the second lilies supercharge most of your spells if you have 3, you're going to feel the need to waste 3 GCD on heals you probably don't need in order to get that supercharged effect.
I do think Lilies are stupidly underwhelming (lower CD is about as boring as you can get for a special ability), but I'd prefer them to not make an even worse decision and make us heal 3 full times before getting our full effects. -
10-20-2017, 11:49 PMRaminax
I like Divine Benison. I would've liked it even more if it didn't require a Lily to cast, which is about the only change I can think about to not make it broken.
Either that or let lilies be generated through casting Stone so that DB is more reliably available, but that's a discussion for another time, seeing as it would've affected more than just Benison. :p -
10-21-2017, 01:04 AMErakirIt's a travesty to me that as usable as Benison is, I hear people use it less and less in fights as they get better simply because lily generation plummets as you cast fewer cures. I *want* to use Benison - Casting cure 2 and following up with benison is like a guaranteed crit every 30s with the crit portion not overhealing. Something that you -should- feel efficient using, a free-mini-boost. And yet here we are - It feels bad to pass it over cause the GCD to generate the lily becomes less and less worth it (Not to mention, a risk if your cohealer tops off the person while you're casting and you get no lily at all). And like yourself, the times I've had to suddenly tetra and lose the shield I had planned on using in 3s just sucks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebazy
During HW I was a big proponent of some sort of synergy with DPS, things like allowing stone casts to stack or proc MP reduction of stoneskins, helping offset the harsh MP costs and letting you stay in Cleric's longer to avoid triggering the 5s lockout again (And shields happen to play oh so nicely with HoTs if a person isn't topped off when the shield is applied, almost like we could regen a tank and buffer them with small shields or something to make tank health stable and less ping-pongy). Heaven forbid we got to make better use of that "lovely" 0.5s cast time reduction trait. One could do similar things with the aero line tied to regen, or any number of spells, but that basic point remains. It's important to not make it ~more~ healing than not DPSing, but more of a little bonus that you can weave back into healing related mechanics.
It should come as no surprise that I'm sad we can't generate lilies with DPS as well. If they put, say, that 20% chance back on stone casts, suddenly it's gonna start popping up more often. Heck, if you gained one every 5 casts of stone - would it be a real problem if a WHM was generating 3 lilies every 30-40s or so doing nothing but DPS, given the whoop-de-do nature of the CD reductions as it is? I'd say probably not.
Food for thought - as meh as CD reduction is for the other skills, I'd consider that benison *might* benefit the most from it, despite the reduction being so small. This is specifically because other abilities are often planned for mechanics, and while I've planned benison a fair bit, too, its lily requirement leads to it being phased out, making it more usable as a 'whenever feels decent' skill. However, it also means generating more lilies to constantly use, which decrease as fight experience goes on, so you probably won't really capitalize much on 24s Benison vs 30s. Tetra is the other ability I feel benefits the most from CDR for its reactionary nature.
As for the OP - Honestly if I had to address any of our abilities, Asylum would be the first one I look at before Benison. And that's after doing something with that garbage Secrets of the Lily II trait.
Also, Kabzy, I want to say Benison stacks with SCH/AST shields. The tooltips for the latter specifically state not stacking with Adlo (for AST) and Nocturnal stance (for SCH). I haven't tested it in a long time but I could have sworn I looked at it early into the expansion and saw they stacked. Stoneskin always stacked with AST/SCH shields too, which is why we'd spend 8 GCDs stoneskinning the raid for things like Nerve Cloud in T11 back in ARR, and why if you really felt like it you could take Stoneskin as SCH for extra tank HP on dungeon pulls on top of Adlo. Right now, it makes benison unique in being the only healer skill that can further increase a tank's EHP past Adlo/Benific 2. If this is incorrect someone please slap me, though. -
10-21-2017, 01:31 AMGhishlainUnless they changed it in 4.1, Benison does indeed stack with Galvanize / Nocturnal Field. In fact Benison also stacks with TBN from DRK making for some super sweet shields when you put the two together.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erakir
I do agree that it sucks that Benison needs the Lily now that the midcore/hardcore raiders are basically at a point where casting single-target GCD heals is pretty inefficient. The only time I use Benison currently is either (1) things are going south because someone goofed or (2) when I'm doing Aero 3 after GC-Delta in O4S [SC + Cure II + DB after Aero 3 resolves so tank is ready for Earthshaker].
I would support any move to shift Benison away from the Lily requirement. Even if it gets a small CD increase to compensate (say 45s), at least then we would try to use the ability off CD at every opportunity with the added benefit of Lilies reducing the CDR on Benison if we had Lilies available at the time.
I also want to add that as much as I'd also be a proponent of DPS spells generating Lilies, I got a feeling we won't see that. Based on some of the comments from the developers and how they've done the healers so far, it doesn't feel like they would entertain the idea of a DPS augmenting a healer's healing kit as a means to "not encourage a feeling of Healer's needing to DPS". -
10-21-2017, 02:07 AMKabzyOh yeah I knew that but I should have elaborated. I was just speculating that IF they were to make an AoE version of DB, it would most likely have to be treated as our current shields and not be allowed to stack. Which would actually further ruin the spell because, as stated, it would lose its' uniqueness in being able to stack with shields as Stoneskin did before it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erakir
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10-21-2017, 02:10 AMErakirYeah I'm not really holding my breath, either. The mindset would be a bit ironic in this case, as the only thing it'd actually do is make it less intimidating to DPS ala the helpful augmentation without negatively impacting lily generation or healing capability should one choose not to DPS, a similar reasoning they used for the removal of the stance-dancing Cleric Stance. Still, I'm not expecting them to do anything like that due to backlash of "How dare you give a healing benefit to DPS!"Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghishlain
I might have to disagree with removing the lily requirement if it comes with a CD increase, though. That's a double edged sword in a way. I'd benefit, sure - It would certainly keep its use up for raiders as we use less cures, but it's a negative impact on the healers that are spamming cures a lot in dungeons, whether they're undergeared, inexperienced, or their party is doing dumb things. It might make healing harder for new healers that are generating plenty of lilies already. I'd be careful about more Plenary Indulgence scenarios, where making things more useful as the savage level leads to less usefulness outside of that content. Given I'd say this wouldn't be a major case (It's not like the usefulness is being lessened, simply the raw HPS of it), but if I were a dungeon WHM used to using benison every 24-30s or so and I saw it upped to 36-45 simply because raiders wanted to use it more, I have to say I'd feel slighted.
However, an offset to this would be an increase in the lily's effects if they're adamant on keeping it as cooldown reduction. After all, said cure spamming situations lead to an overabundance of lilies to benefit from.
Edit: Kazby - Gotcha! I see your point with that for sure :) -
10-21-2017, 05:56 AMTrunks
The less shielding in the game the better. That said, I almost never use Divine Benison because... honestly, Cure is of very limited use. Yet they explicitly added a Lily requirement to it so that it would be more limited than Stoneskin, so I don't think that's going to change.
I wouldn't mind the Lily requirement being removed and changing it to a "heals for x under condition y", e.g., 20% of target's HP if the target's health drops below 30%; or even to a high-potency, short-duration, single-target heal-over-time, e.g., 200 potency instantly and then 200 potency HOT for 9s. -
10-21-2017, 06:36 AMJoe777It might've been the only oGCD barrier ability before 4.1, but Shake It Off changed that. Of course, that's only if you count barriers you can use on others. Self-barriers include Shade Shift and Manaward.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebazy
Indeed Secret of the Lily II is pretty much useless, and Asylum is pretty weak in both effect and potency, but the thing to wonder about those 2 is how to improve them? Just make Secret of the Lily II guaranteed to shave off some of the CD? Add a little mitigation to Asylum? Or perhaps add both MP and TP regen to Asylum?Quote:
Originally Posted by Erakir
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10-21-2017, 07:34 AMTrunks
I can't be the only one who thinks this "Asylum is bad!" narrative is absurd...? Just on a cursory look at some logs from OS fights, it is among my highest-output abilities pretty consistently, usually only surpassed by Cure III, Medica II, and sometimes Assize and/or Regen. If you're looking for "bad" abilities, Cure and Cure II are a good place to start -- I use them, combined, less often than I use Benediction, a 3 min CD.
This mindset of drawing direct comparisons between abilities in different Jobs rather than comparing and contrasting their respective toolkits in totality is problematic. There's a real case to be made that WHM's toolkit is less versatile than SCH's, and I don't even think it's worth arguing in regards to AST. But that's not a matter of "Asylum is weak" (or any other single ability) so much as the fact that AST's extraordinary overall versatility both shapes and fits the meta in ways that WHM's "brute-force" healing style can't and doesn't.
For example, it's almost never talked about that WHM is the least range-limited of the three healers. Cure III can be used to target multiple players far from the caster; this is basically the combined healing functionality of both Synastry AND Earthly Star, without the drawback of ground-placement and without a CD. Medica II also has a 20y radius.
But there really isn't any need to spam tanks with Cure III through, say, Akh Mourn on Shinryu. Is that because the damage is too low, or is it because tanks have more options and flexibility in their toolkits, or both? Players will always take the path of least resistance -- and it's far less risky to mitigate / shield damage than to heal it. In a typical 8-player group there is such a glut of tools to mitigate or negate damage that WHM's powerhouse healing is consigned to irrelevance. (Again, I'm going to point out the egregiousness of The Bole here; no, RNG is not a significant enough drawback to excuse it.)
It's really easy to say, "x ability is bad, plz buff!", but it's silly. The interplay between encounter design, healer Job design, and tank Job design is extremely complex. Rather than singling out individual abilities, it's more appropriate to take a holistic look. So what's WHM's problem(s)? In terms of balance: its healing toolkit revolves much too heavily around Medica II and Cure III. In terms of gameplay: Lilies were ill-conceived from the start and the last-second fixes right around SB launch were cheap band-aids; its DPS gameplay is likewise lackluster. These two flaws underlie almost all of the suggestions and complaints about this Job, and I think it's more helpful to hammer that point home than to argue over specifics, lest we cause the devs to miss the forest for the trees. -
10-21-2017, 08:48 AMErakirHow relatively insulting, to sit and assume that none of us are thinking about the entire toolkits of other healers - let alone every job - when we make our observations. You might not have intended it, but certainly comes off that way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trunks
Edit: In retrospect, you don't really come off that way too much, so apologies.
Yes, I and others are very aware of, say, Cure III's benefit of being targetable. I've called that out in posts in the past. There are plenty of people who take notice of the benefit of an additional 5y on Medica II as well. I'm also pretty certain Assize hits the healing adds in Shinryu Ex since it's coded to target enemies and allies (and heals them) while Indom doesn't, but I'd really have to pay attention a little more to verify this. This doesn't change my stance on Asylum being the tool I'd look at modifying before others, were I asked to buff WHM in some way without overhauling the entire kit. I also don't think I've found many that say Asylum is "bad" here - more that it could be improved to better fit scenarios since it has its own limiting factors that must be played around to utilize it well (I've mentioned some specific instances where Asylum felt really good to use in the past).
I've just gone and pulled a bunch of random logs from a certain website. I randomly sampled from the 100s, 200s, 500s, 800s - quite a few when looking at overall healing done. My conclusion is that few of these show Asylum at more than 6% of healing until Neo (Where it often sat 9-12%). I also found a few in O1S putting it around 10%, there. I'm not going to sit here and look for specific logs of people getting more use out of it, but I am absolutely sure they exist. My random sampling didn't come up with tons of them, though.
You're super against shielding in other threads and seem to want to go to a less bursty environment, or are worried about an abundance of shielding leading to that sort of mitigate-or-die lifestyle. I've seen it happen, I'm not really a fan of it either. It comes as no surprise to me that you're getting some better use out of Asylum, but it does come with a caveat of training the raid to better utilize it. I still wouldn't call it particularly powerful. Useless? Of course not.
On top of this, raw healing % breakdowns are not often a thorough argument in themselves. Timely healing is just as important as the spells putting up the big numbers and such things must be considered. When nourish first came out in WotLK on my druid it rarely ever amounted to more than 4% of my healing, but it filled a specific niche druids suffered in before - not fantastically, but we had the option, and I certainly was glad to use it there. We're in a world right now where WHM can afford to be pretty inefficient, which further makes Asylum less useful simply because it's straight up not needed in many scenarios and it will always be safer to top people off sooner rather than later if your MP and GCDs can afford it. Yes it means less damage which certainly can matter on progression. It remains safer.
You act like you're the only one who considers multiple facets of character ability and encounter design.
You're not.
I don't really disagree with a lot of what you say, even, particularly when it comes to flawed lily conception, last minute bandaids, and Medica II being so much of our healing. The lily discussion was already done to death, and as we're all aware, we pretty much got some bandaids to tie us over. There's still much to talk about. For instance, for all those speaking about never using Cure or Cure 2, there are plenty of WHMs clearing that use the spells a fair amount, regardless of it being more meta to ignore them and focus so much on OGCDs - and the leveling experience cannot be ignored either if your goal is to try and get these hardcast basic heals used more often. A shift towards more of them would likely mean a shift towards a more triage style of healing that WoW went towards when Cataclysm came out, making healers use efficient healing rather than spending our time DPSing. That's not necessarily good or bad but it's a huge design change and might be met poorly with those more accustomed to spending downtime DPSing. Or you could simply powerhouse those heals one way or another. You've either gotta make the heals stronger to warrant the time spent casting (including extra benefits, not just potency), or change encounters to warrant casting such heals over other options. I mean, it wasn't too long ago that Cure 2 wasn't so spammable, let ALONE cure 3. We used to actually look for freecure procs. But our MP economy is through the roof, and you can't just lower that because WHMs are currently relying on being able to cast a fair amount of cure 3's and medica 2's without murdering their bar to remain competitive. Every change is a tug on an entire spider web, as you point out.
Of course it's complex. Painting a full picture here on the forums would take pages and pages of discussion; there's simply that much to consider in how abilities are used and what compositions people play with. We could go on for hours about underlying issues with the job and how to address them, but there's the practicality of what Square might actually do mid-expansion with development time that is available. This base is likely what we're stuck with for awhile.
Meanwhile Secrets of the Lily II remains garbage and will so long as it keeps its abysmal proc chance - on those to-be-avoided cures as it is. -
10-21-2017, 10:53 AMKDSilver
What suck with Benision is the lily requirement.
If you have no lily, you have to cast cure or cure ii.
But if everyone are full life, you won't be able to generate a lily, and so, won't be able to use benision.
In other word just get rid of that lily requirement.
Otherwise, it's a really good skill, no need to change it.
(they could even just remove lilies actually) -
10-21-2017, 12:25 PMCynfael
Benison is great; the Lily requirement wasn't the best idea. I don't think it's so game-breaking that gating it behind a resource that is shared with Assize, Asylum, and Tetragrammaton is necessary. Remove it from the Lily mechanic altogether and keep it as a flat 30s CD for all I care, but it will be much more fun and intuitive to use that way.
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10-22-2017, 10:14 AMTrunksApologies if I came across as condescending. To be clear, I wasn't directing my comments at everyone, but I also didn't wish to target anyone; obviously that's a tough line to walk because I can't foresee how others will perceive it. Asylum has been singled out a few times in just this thread, including in a comparison to Sacred Soil and Collective Unconscious, and two of the handful of active threads in this subforum are about targeted buffs to WHM abilities with the justification that someone else has something. It has been my experience that this tit-for-tat mentality is self-reinforcing. I give SE's devs a lot of credit, but they're not immune to whining en masse, so it's always prudent to try to head off damaging or short-sighted ideas before they become embedded into a militant commentariat.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erakir
On the substance I think we're largely on the same page. My biggest concern, as you noted, is the development of a "mitigate-or-die" healing meta. Design trends can easily become embedded in the development cycles and entrenched in the community's mindset. It's far more palatable to scale things back than to completely revamp or remove them, which is why I vehemently come out against any suggestion to add more shielding or mitigation. Power creep over the life of an expansion is inevitable. One stat affects non-tank survivability (VIT) while multiple affect our throughput. As we get more and more gear our healing output relative to health pools will continue to rise. This naturally favors mitigation, while WHM's core strengths are already in a precarious spot.
For examining current capabilities I don't think there are too many relevant encounters other than O4S and perhaps Shinryu. The former is a fight which actually favors WHM's capabilities because you can spend so much time stacked and Almagest is a match made in heaven for Cure III. And yet, it was first solo-healed by an AST (very soon after release, I'll add). This gets to the core of the problem which I was trying to articulate: healing (/shielding/mit) in general is so powerful that the strengths of WHM are virtually irrelevant. Asylum's seeming weakness is more a function of a lack of need more than a specific problem with the ability's design. It's "just more healing" on a Job which has it in spades. So the issues I see here are: (1) the game offers few opportunities to showcase the healing differential WHM benefits from, and (2) even when it does provide those opportunities, AST can just AOE Bole + Collective + shield through it. Healing? How quaint. Why bother with the stress? The same for basically every one of WHM's strong points. Take MP economy. No question, it's there. But between the Ewer, the ability to extend Lucid Dreaming's duration (a double insult given this was originally WHM's ability), Light Speed, and then the potential presence of SMN/BLM MP batteries or a BRD, well, what's so good about WHM, again?
So would I mind seeing Asylum changed, say, so that the HOT persists when people walk out of it? Not really. Would I mind seeing it turned, say, into a copy/paste of Sacred Soil? You bet. But in any case it's just more band-aids on band-aids on band-aids to a Job that's been stitched back together after multiple dismemberments. If your ship's springing leaks left and right, sure, you can just plug them as they come and carry on. But eventually you're either going to need a few months in dry dock or you're going to sink. -
10-22-2017, 10:59 AMErakirEh, you really didn't come off condescending, I'm at fault for a bit of an overreaction, so again, I apologize.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trunks
I could go into more detail, but all in all I've got some pretty similar concerns for the development as you do, including the power creep of throughput stats. I've also mentioned several times in the past that WHM's MP economy is fantastic but with refresh being way less of a burden to use now alongside not-very-painful-to-use mana shifts I really haven't seen the MP economy be a super super strength, either, as no one seems to be hurting bad there. I mean, it's entirely possible they make encounters with mechanics that specifically work against it (As an example, General Vezax in WotLK WoW, where MP regeneration is turned to 0 for the entire fight and efficiency is very important), but right now we haven't seen such a thing this tier.
I mean, I am able to raise a small army during 24 mans, I suppose~ Now if they'd stop standing in the pillars of doom that'd be just great.
I've also talked at length in another thread about not having a bunch of content to showcase HoTs, and I think that'd tie in here as well with your general point of showcasing the strengths of the job. Of course, right after I said it we got Shinryu Ex which has a time where benediction is super convenient and regens are well worth casting on multiple Reiryus, go figure - but that's the sort of thing I'd like to see more of even if they're not perfect or super creative scenarios. It'd be even neater if Asylum and Assize worked on them, but I mean - minor DoT from hellfire is a great time to put that soap bubble to use, too. It doesn't change what you talk about - toolkits being simply that powerful overall - but it's something I appreciate nonetheless.
For asylum, there's so many things they could do to it, it'd be a shame if it just became a carbon copy of SS like you say. I could mention many thoughts and ideas here to try and address it, but they'd all be adjustments to help it better fit into our current encounter designs - which one could say are bandaids, aye, though some of these ideas are more unique and dynamic than others. For random instance, consider an Asylum that is most effective (100/target) on a full raid, but scales up slightly if less are in it (Maybe 200 potency per target with 2 in it, or 250 if only one). It might be too powerful with current mechanics, but it's something unique and would improve its versatility. There's plenty more, from lilies affecting radius to duration to other effects that could synergize with other healers, so much to talk about that could be interesting. Square's own engine would probably come into play for some of these. I've no idea what it's ultimately capable of. Regardless, I want to make abilities thought provoking and fun to use. If someone thinks to themselves "You know, I think I did a smart thing using it like that" then I'm thrilled. As simple an example as it is, holding Assize in the final boss of the vault because it's just a perfect radius to hit all 8 flame spheres? That feels good.
Things go out the window entirely when we talk of a huge shift in encounters and damage, and I fully admit it's another avenue they could take. I don't personally think they will anytime soon from the history of encounters here, but hey, never know what's around the corner. I didn't expect to be healing dragon heads, either.
At any rate, I think we ultimately share many similar thoughts but might have been starting from a different angle. I appreciate you not lashing back at me, as I could be seen as rather rude in response.
Also, Hyperion represent~ -
10-22-2017, 09:32 PMTridusI'm one of those people targeting Asylum, but more because Asylum is something I hardly ever use than anything else. Honestly if you removed it from my bar, it'd be several encounters before I noticed (unlike something like Assize, where id't take ten seconds). I'm not sure I'd care, either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trunks
I spend most of my time in the DF, and Asylum is barely worth using in most of the content in the DF. It's biggest problem vs SS & CU is that unlike those two, you have to stay in it for an extended amount of time for it to do anything of consequence. Even on an encounter that doesn't have people moving often enough to make that a fools errand, you can't trust people in the DF to stay in it. They'll wander off to wherever they want to be, and now it was a waste of clicks to put it up . I mean, it'll work fine on the tank pretty much all the time, but "more tank healing" is not exactly something WHM is in need of. I certainly won't use it when I might want to use DB soon, because it just burned all my lilies and now I can't cast DB. That could be fixed without changing what Asylum does by having it put a HoT up when you enter it, so it keeps working if you leave.
Maybe it's better at the bleeding edge of content, but if the only time something is particularly good is when the top 2% are doing it, that's kind of a problem... especially when PI is already in that boat. And that's setting aside that when said bleeding edge stuff is already solo healable within a month of it coming out, who needs more healing? One healer doing the job of two suggests pretty strongly that there's more than enough healing to go around, more of it that's a hassle to get full effect from is redundant.
This I agree with, but it's SE's doing. When you have bursty damage, the biggest risk is someone dying before you have a chance to heal them. When you can get someone from 1% to 100% in seconds, stopping damage from happening is vastly more powerful than being able to heal it faster than you already can. Rabanstre has a couple of things like that where you take damage and get a DoT and the first DoT tick is likely to kill you, unless you're shielded, in which case you may get a second one. No amount of "more healing" is better than the extra time you get from that shield letting the person live an additional tick (my favorite is when 2 or 3 people get it and the other healer doesn't have Esuna, fun times).Quote:
On the substance I think we're largely on the same page. My biggest concern, as you noted, is the development of a "mitigate-or-die" healing meta. Design trends can easily become embedded in the development cycles and entrenched in the community's mindset. It's far more palatable to scale things back than to completely revamp or remove them, which is why I vehemently come out against any suggestion to add more shielding or mitigation. Power creep over the life of an expansion is inevitable. One stat affects non-tank survivability (VIT) while multiple affect our throughput. As we get more and more gear our healing output relative to health pools will continue to rise. This naturally favors mitigation, while WHM's core strengths are already in a precarious spot.
They probably could design encounters that favor WHM's sustained HPS throughput more, but they don't. At this point, I'm not sure I expect them to until another expansion brings another round of ability rebalancing, perhaps with an eye to nerfing healing potency so it's less necessary to burst everyone for huge damage in order to threaten them. As it stands right now, the "mitigate or die" meta is coming around because the game favors mitigion, as the mitigation healers also have enough HPS to recover everyone after they mitigate fast enough that doing it faster doesn't matter.
Yep, agreed.Quote:
For examining current capabilities I don't think there are too many relevant encounters other than O4S and perhaps Shinryu. The former is a fight which actually favors WHM's capabilities because you can spend so much time stacked and Almagest is a match made in heaven for Cure III. And yet, it was first solo-healed by an AST (very soon after release, I'll add). This gets to the core of the problem which I was trying to articulate: healing (/shielding/mit) in general is so powerful that the strengths of WHM are virtually irrelevant. Asylum's seeming weakness is more a function of a lack of need more than a specific problem with the ability's design. It's "just more healing" on a Job which has it in spades. So the issues I see here are: (1) the game offers few opportunities to showcase the healing differential WHM benefits from, and (2) even when it does provide those opportunities, AST can just AOE Bole + Collective + shield through it. Healing? How quaint. Why bother with the stress? The same for basically every one of WHM's strong points. Take MP economy. No question, it's there. But between the Ewer, the ability to extend Lucid Dreaming's duration (a double insult given this was originally WHM's ability), Light Speed, and then the potential presence of SMN/BLM MP batteries or a BRD, well, what's so good about WHM, again?
Yep. I think we're mostly on the same page. I don't want Asylum to be the same as what everyone else has, either. Why have three healing jobs if they're effectively identical? I do want a reason to push the button more often. That's in comparison to DB (the topic of the thread), because aside from the nuisance lily requirement, I already use that one frequently and it does something useful without being a carbon copy of everyone else.Quote:
So would I mind seeing Asylum changed, say, so that the HOT persists when people walk out of it? Not really. Would I mind seeing it turned, say, into a copy/paste of Sacred Soil? You bet. But in any case it's just more band-aids on band-aids on band-aids to a Job that's been stitched back together after multiple dismemberments. If your ship's springing leaks left and right, sure, you can just plug them as they come and carry on. But eventually you're either going to need a few months in dry dock or you're going to sink.
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10-22-2017, 09:47 PMKabzyI'm not too sure on this one. Compared to the other two healers, Asylum is much easier to use and totals at a potency of 800 which is definitely a GCD or two saved in healing. It's basically a tank HoT in most scenarios, but that's still a good tool to have. ASTs bubble is great, but it has very limited use. You can pretty much only use it when everyone needs to stack and also you'll only keep it up if nothing is targetable. Otherwise it's basically used like a point blank Asylum, which is not always convenient. SCH loses to both in the battle of the bubbles because their one is flat out useless unless it actually mitigates a death. Being tied to AF means it's in competition with abilities that are better than it in most scenarios.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tridus
I've actually been a little baffled at this, but I can actually understand why WHMs have complained about PI so much. When you look at their HW additions, WHMs got abilities that were useful in a general sense. I'm a SCH main, and when HW hit 3/5 of our new abilities were pretty much linked to raiding only. Both tactics and Dissipation were extremely situational in casual content and really shined as tools in raids. I'm not 100% sure about other jobs, but based on that alone I can say that it's not unheard of for a job to get abilities that may only have uses in higher end content. So I don't really see Plenary as a 'problem'. You might not see it being used all the time, but it has proven its use in Savage, mainly 04s.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tridus
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10-22-2017, 10:46 PMTridusAs a tank HoT, Aslyum works. WHM already has a tank HoT, though, and two of them if you're using Medica II. A third one that has a side effect of temporarily locking out DB (unless you use it after DB) is not exactly very interesting. I'd probably enjoy it more if they changed it to "everyone standing in this gains 10% skill/spell speed", because it'd let me fling rocks faster. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabzy
CU and SS are more limited use, but they do very useful things in those situations, stacking isn't exactly uncommon, and they don't require the party to stand still for the entire duration to work. I mean, SS *could*, if you used it as a tank mitigation, but then it's doing something better than Asylum with the same limitations.
Keep in mind that we're on the second version of PI now. WHMs complained about the first version so much because it required spamming Cure to get confessions at a 20% rate, and would only heal targets with confessions... which meant it was effectively a tank heal. There's been far less complaining since it was changed to be usable. It works fine now, it's just something that only really shines at the bleeding edge. And that's fine. Those buttons are going to exist. I'd rather see fewer of them than more, of course. (Probably one of the reasons I dislike SCH is just how many buttons feel that way, where you're constantly juggling all these situational things. For those who enjoy that style of gameplay, great!)Quote:
I've actually been a little baffled at this, but I can actually understand why WHMs have complained about PI so much. When you look at their HW additions, WHMs got abilities that were useful in a general sense. I'm a SCH main, and when HW hit 3/5 of our new abilities were pretty much linked to raiding only. Both tactics and Dissipation were extremely situational in casual content and really shined as tools in raids. I'm not 100% sure about other jobs, but based on that alone I can say that it's not unheard of for a job to get abilities that may only have uses in higher end content. So I don't really see Plenary as a 'problem'. You might not see it being used all the time, but it has proven its use in Savage, mainly 04s.
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10-23-2017, 01:07 AMMisteHow does an AST solo healing O4S make WHM irrelevant when 99% of groups cannot solo heal O4S? I mean we cannot base the game difficulty or job balance based on the <1% of insanely good 99th percentile players who are capable of doing a fight in a way that the devs didn't intend.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trunks
I mean maybe the devs will make the next savage tier so hard to heal that no one can solo heal it to make sure no healer has a "soloable" advantage over another healer (even though like I said barely anyone in this game is capable of taking advantage of that during progression or before nerfs and echo), but guess what is going to happen? A lot of midcore groups won't even be able to clear it with two healers.
Why bother with healing? Because that is how WHM plays?Quote:
Originally Posted by Trunks
WHM heals through the damage with less mitigation.
Noct AST uses mitigation for the damage with less healing.
It is simply two different styles of "keeping the party alive" that accomplish the same thing in the end. I mean do we want all healers to just be able to do the same thing? Make them into carbon copies of each other just because one AST solo healed O4S.
Also the game is designed with two healers working in tandem using the two above healing styles.
AST does not use Ewer for MP unless a large amount of deaths are happening and eating MP or if the AST themselves dies and even if you did need an Ewer there is zero guarantee you will get one when you need it because it is RNG. No good AST will Spread an Ewer and hold on to it either. Using Ewer for MP has a pretty bad detriment because you aren't use it to setup damage boosts for the group.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trunks
Lightspeed (situational because it has a detriment of nerfing your DPS magic and you should be weaving DPS magic in the majority of content) and increasing the duration of Lucid Dreaming is basically AST's answer to Assize and Thin Air. Which in my experience playing both jobs Thin Air is still superior for MP management and Assize not only heals and does damage, but also gives you 10% MP back as a bonus as well. I would say extending the duration of LD is just similar to using Lilies on Assize and the key fact AST has nothing like Thin Air.
As for MP batteries....I'm pretty sure Mana Shift and BRD/MCH Refresh also works on WHMs and not just ASTs...so WHM can reap the benefits of that as well...so what point were you trying to make there?
So AST definitely isn't in a bad spot for MP, they are fine, but WHM is still better off because of Thin Air especially. MP management is really totally fine for all healers at the moment so this is a non-issue and a bad argument to make that WHM is somehow lacking compared to AST.
So yeah please...WHM is not irrelevant just because one player (that we can prove anyway) solo healed O4S on AST and of all the things to pick to complain that AST has better you choose MP and that it is an insult to WHM? I personally just cannot take this seriously at all. /shrug -
10-23-2017, 02:07 AMErakir
I'm not sure Trunks is talking about WHM being irrelevant, more towards a broader view of the healing systems in this game and concern for where it's all going. That said -
You don't ignore the tip top optimization of classes simply because most groups won't achieve it.
You certainly don't balance entirely around it, but you don't ignore it either. It's important to know what the ceilings are.
You missed the point entirely when it comes to MP, and in fact further emphasize it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Miste
MP economy is often touted as a particular strength of WHM because, well, it certainly has ridiculous MP economy. Yet, that economy doesn't often come into play super often because other healer MP seems fine, particularly because of the abundance of MP batteries. Sure, WHM can get mana shift and refresh too.
So? What's it gonna do with that MP? Dump Cure 3s or holy spam for no apparent reason? We're already tailored around being able to cast cure 3 when relevant, and all of us are bound by the GCD. It's not gonna let us stone more; our single target DPS is cheap as heck. That refresh and mana shift are such a minor hit to the jobs using them means even the argument of "Well we have a WHM so we have to mana shift less" is poor, and it's not like there's amazing other role actions for them to take. I suppose if you had to have surecast you could keep Apocatastasis if you had the leeway to drop mana shift. Meanwhile, refresh compared to previous expansion Mage's Ballad - not losing any damage anymore to pop that one.
Until we see fights that play towards that strong MP economy more, it's not a good argument for "This is one of the things WHM brings to the table." We can also talk all we want about when everything is on fire and people are spamming desperately to stay alive, but at most this is a time saver for learning fights and does not come into play when people are playing relatively effective - not "on farm" - just reasonably well. This game, on the savage level, is not one where you will hobble through to a victory on death's door unless you already overgear the encounter.
Others have already mentioned how it can be a bigger benefit in, for instance, 24 mans, and they are correct - a WHM can keep going and that boss is not likely to have strict enrages. Same thing with dungeon and holy spam. But when we're talking about savage, it's another story and I find the MP economy argument doesn't hold much water specifically because nobody is hurting that badly on the MP front. I would argue if it were a more significant hit for mana batteries, the MP economy would naturally have more of an effect, as it did in the past. I mean, you only need look at the opportunity cost for using Ewers and how people want to avoid that on AST cause the other options are, quite frankly, more useful in most scenarios.
Edit: Does that mean WHM is irrelevant? Nope. So many times we've talked about things being pretty balanced all in all right now, and I will hold that view as well till more changes~ -
10-23-2017, 02:46 AMMisteNo I didn't. You didn't understand my point about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erakir
MP is still a strength even if some content doesn't always make use of it. FYI MP on WHM is insanely good in dungeons after WHM obtains Thin Air. Much Holy to be had.
I mean why does WHM's MP management have to be way higher than the other two in order for it to be fair? I mean we want balance right? That doesn't seem balanced if WHM never runs out of MP ever and the other two constantly bottom out extremely quickly. Right now though WHM has a bit of an advantage, but the gap between WHM and AST/SCH isn't so large where AST/SCH are having major issues managing their MP. So to me it seems to be in a good place.
The balance for MP management seems fine, WHM has a bit better as a bonus especially if mistakes are made WHM has good recovery power, but the other healer's skill requirements aren't spiking due to difficult MP management. SE specifically said they are moving away from making certain jobs harder or easier to play than others. They want the difficulty to be around the same for each job so making MP management very difficult for 2/3 of the healers while one is far superior seems against what they said they are doing currently.
I mean these arguments about "their strengths don't come into play" is a pointless argument, because 95% of this game no job's strengths come into play when no mistakes are being made. The only time any role has their strengths come into real play is in savage, rabanastre where tons of people make tons of mistakes, and Shinryu at release was quite good difficulty, or when a lot of mistakes happen in some other really easy content. That is 6 instances in the entire game where it is difficult enough to need your strengths? (I mean I almost wouldn't count O1S and O2S even).
People have to constantly tell people what is good about WHM because people -still- complain about WHM like we are still in 3.4.
What is good about WHM doesn't mean their strengths are far superior to the other two healers, just that WHM is good and powerful right now and around the same level as the other healers.
I mean we want balance right? If WHM is around the same level as the other healers then that seems like balance to me. Person I responded to was basically making it out to be AST was stepping all over WHM still like this was 3.4. This isn't 3.4 and AST doesn't step all over WHM anymore. Both are good and both have their strengths and weaknesses.
A really high percentile skilled AST solo healing O4S doesn't mean WHM isn't balanced enough or is lacking because SE simply doesn't balance their jobs or the fights around solo healing. So WHM is very prominent in O4S groups who do the normal design based composition of 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 4 DPS.
I mean my post directly responds to things he posted. If I misunderstood then okay, but he did say WHM is irrelevant and the way he compared the MP seems to me he was making it out to be an issue. So it seemed to me he was saying that AST is just far superior in everything. That would mean he doesn't think the healers are balanced so that is why I replied what I replied. -
10-23-2017, 03:24 AMErakirWhat's your point, then? That everything is fine so we shouldn't talk about anything? We shouldn't consider modifications that might make the experience more enjoyable?Quote:
Originally Posted by Miste
I get that you're concerned about people talking like it's 3.4 WHM all over again, but I haven't seen tons of people saying that either - just this mindset that everyone who brings up anything is overexagerating. Yeah I see some (Admittedly...some post more than others about it..) It's not all.
And, daresay it, that's the exact same type of response I remember when people first brought up concerns about how square was deciding to buff AST in 3.1. "Be quiet, you just want to be broken". If referencing 3.4 WHM is a flawed easy-out to argue for buffs to WHM, dismissing immediately under the premise of "It's not 3.4 anymore" is just the other side. I'm very much worried about these kinds of responses to discussions.
As for MP -
Yes yes, much holy, funsies in dungeons. Luckily there's more than dungeons to consider, since as you say, no one's toolkits are being tested to the extreme there in nearly all scenarios.
I mean, if we take the argument about something being a strength even if it's not always needed to the extreme, we end up with the possibility of a class that's downright mandatory for a fight and useless in others. It has happened in the past, not necessarily in FFXIV, but there are examples. I still hold there is much that can be done to encounters to enforce different styles of play than what we've seen throughout the past few years, and I will encourage them to explore these avenues.
WHM's MP doesn't have to be far and away better than the others. I don't really claim it needs to. However, if Square is acting under the assumption that WHM MP is ridiculously more abundant than other healer MP, it becomes problematic as we'll be balanced around that and it's not really true in practical scenarios. Are they? I don't really think so - but I'm here to quash the idea that WHM MP is limitless just like I'm here to quash the idea that WHM throughput is insane and unmatched, cause I don't want that feedback going to the developers. They appear to be commonly held beliefs. I don't want that idea about MP economy being something that holds this job back for future design considerations.
It's a real worry of mine that when something is 'fine' that they won't look at it at all. I mean it makes sense - even if there's work that could be done, you spend development resources elsewhere. It's why I'll continue to talk about things to focus on for WHM, though, cause I very much feel it could be better.
I guess what it comes down to is you're on the defense against anyone claiming it's 3.4 and WHMs are underpowered (WHM really isn't), and I'm on the defense of those trying to oversell WHM's capabilities. All in all we probably want similar things and don't want any job to completely overshadow others. -
10-23-2017, 03:55 AMMisteI never said you shouldn't talk just because balance is okay right now, but I am allowed to talk too right...so what is your issue with me asking the person I originally replied to what his point was supposed to be?Quote:
Originally Posted by Erakir
I mean talk all you want, but why can I not talk with you or challenge your opinions and ideas with my own? You can't have a discussion with just one person anyway and unfortunately this is a public forum so I am free to hold my opinions up against someone elses if I want to right.
To me the comparisons he was making was like this was 3.4 and AST was trampling WHM. Like I said if I misunderstood him then okay, but he basically made some comparisons that I feel are incorrect as someone who plays both WHM and AST in difficult content.
Talking about the future and WHM and its capabilities is fine, but the issue I have is when people over exaggerate like crazy and make WHM out to be the poor victim of AST squashing it under its boot when that simply is not the case anymore. Using phrases like "it is a double insult to WHM" that AST has something in their toolkit and saying WHM is irrelevant because one 99th percentile AST solo healed O4S...sorry but stuff like that is why I replied to him.
I mean you do realize the reason we do not understand eachother right now is because my response wasn't even towards your post or your opinions. So I don't even know your stance on anything really and the MP thing was because of what the poster I originally replied to said about it. He made it seem like it was an issue so I replied as such.
I am not dismissing things just because "it's not 3.4 anymore". What I am dismissing is the over exaggerations.
Edit: but yeah we probably do think similarly and I am not trying to oversell WHM just that the person I replied to seemed to be very much underselling WHM. -
10-26-2017, 02:21 PMXidiaI personally wish I could see more use from WHM. I -LOVE- them for the new 24-man and dungeons (I mean...6 regens on MT is hilarious and dumb.) and for dungeons they just have good numbers and some nice panic buttons (bene/tetra).Quote:
Originally Posted by Miste
As far as Primals go, I don't feel like WHM brings much to the table. They're good for learning parties, but fall flat when everyone understands mechanics and the like. They get out-healed by SCH and AST. -
10-26-2017, 05:41 PMExiled_TonberryI really want to bring attention to this. WHM is fine. Perfectly viable and all that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erakir
It doesn't NEED anything, but it could use some improvements here and there.
It's similar to SCH not needing a buff to shield potency. They were perfectly viable mitigators, probably more sought after then AST even with their stronger base shielding.
Nonetheless they received a buff, because they felt it could see some improvement. It's the same case with WHM. As long as it stays balanced, I don't see where there can't be small additions to their kit.
I don't exactly get why it's so widespread to instantly shoot down anything concerning WHM. Even back in 3.4, there were constant "WHM is fine" talk.
I must be missing something. -
10-26-2017, 11:17 PMCynfaelI think it's more of a reaction to persistent and somewhat overblown WHM doom-and-gloom rants. I've long agreed with the idea that WHM needed improvements to further carve out its niche (well, since AST was born and immediately began to encroach even harder on WHM than on SCH), but a lot of these discussions escalate past discussion of reasonable changes to "WHM is dead! No, it's fine! Dead! Fine! Dead!" I feel like it's almost automatic that WHM discussion threads are perceived as absolutes even when they don't need to be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry
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10-27-2017, 12:40 AMMisteI swap between AST and WHM for Shinryu EX farms and I personally have not seen what you are saying here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xidia
They are both basically the same item level (AST 340, WHM 339) and I usually end up with more healing on my WHM than my Diurnal AST. This is also a point to highlight that I am overall more comfortable on AST having more experience on it in general so even with that comfort level I still usually outheal my Diurnal AST with my WHM.
AST just has less direct DPS but I do get to use cards (at least when RNG doesn't screw me over and I keep sleeve drawing double Spire -_-)
I've seen some amazing WHMs in Shinryu too when I have to go Nocturnal AST. They are pushing way more healing than my Diurnal and even more direct DPS than I do on my WHM just because they are more experienced with the fight and I guess aren't worried about mistakes. I tend to be more cautious in Shinryu since people make mistakes often sometimes and healers sometimes have to save them from death or also raise people quickly.
Like Cynfael said it is because of overblown WHM doom and gloom rants.Quote:
Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry
Personally if people want something for WHM or improvements I don't even care really as long as it isn't utterly balance destroying. it is only when they try to make over exaggerations, biased claims, or victimize WHM in order to claim their ideas must be heard and must be implemented that I just stop listening and will start dismissing things and like I said I dismiss the over exaggerations, and not necessarily the ideas.
Discussing or asking for stuff for WHM or improvements to WHM = Awesome! That's what the forum is here for: discussions
Discussing or asking for stuff for WHM or improvements and using over exaggerations, victimizing, and biased claims to argue why WHM wants or needs these improvements = No
In 3.4 WHM complaints were totally 100% justified. Now though? The over exaggerations, victimizing, and biased claims just gets silly. -
10-27-2017, 01:37 AMValmaxianI agree. Also, some guages don't do anything special other than display info, so at least it adds something somewhat useful. :) As for DB, I agree that it shouldn't be lily-dependent.Quote:
Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry
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10-31-2017, 09:17 PMAutumnsHollow
Hmm, I'd personally like to see divine bension being a cooldown and not locked to the lily system. I think it'd be more fluid that way.
That and our lily system is very underwhelming and the traits are pretty useless too because cooldown reduction is dumb. If it could empower our OGCD's or possibly add an additional effect to the OGCD skill; like for example making asylum restore MP/TP or anything really it'd be more useful imo.
That and letting us have control over if lilies get spent on the next OGCD or not. Not that it matters at this point in time because lilies are just fodder for divine bension atm. -
10-31-2017, 10:33 PMTzain
I think I can see 'why' DB is locked to the lily system, and I actually agree with the decision.
Regardless, I'd much rather see some kind of 'duration' increase based on how many lilies are consumed for this ability rather than a cooldown reduction. There are a few too many times that I'm sitting on 3 lilies, the only lily-eater not on cooldown is DB and my brain thinks 'ugh, what a waste'. -
10-31-2017, 11:08 PMBorisDaBlade
I may be a bad whm, but I need my lillies for my assize cd reduction. why would I want to waste them on a shield that I don’t really need to cast anyway? I’ve never had a wipe and thought, “ Boy, I wished I had cast DB there.”
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11-01-2017, 03:23 AMIttyBittyGiven that WHM is struggling to even generate lilies, and nearly all of your oGCD tools spend your lilies, you're rarely ever going to have more than 1 lily at any one time, unless you start playing incredibly inoptimally.Quote:
Originally Posted by BorisDaBlade
For a single lily, Benison provides a 15% oGCD shield, which can save you a healing GCD down the line. 2.4s off your assize recast isn't anything you "need".