Idea of a New WHM Mechanic: Thorns

This isn't so much a suggestion but an idea I had for WHMs. I'm not at all expecting the devs to add it to the game, I just wanted to share it.

It could go something like this:
- When a WHM successfully casts a Stone or Aero Spell (or for every x-amount of successful tics on an Aero spell's effect), they will recieve one Thorn to a new Rose Gauge.
- The Rose Gauge can hold up to 10 Thorns on it.
- Thorns could have a benificial side-effect to WHM's Offensive spells like reducing their cast/recast time or lowering MP cost by a small amount per Thorn.
- HOWEVER, the main reason to collect Thorns would be to use on a new Ability-or-Spell that uses them up.

ex:
Banish: oGCD Ability. Can only be used when the user has at least 1 Thorn. Uses up all the user's Thorns and damage a selected target and all targets with in 5-yalms of them. Potency equals the number of Thorns used times 40 to the first enemy hit, 10% less for the second, 20% less for the third, 30% for the fourth, 40% for the fifth, and 50% for all remaining enemies. Instant cast time. 60 second cooldown.

or

Nophica's Bramble: oGCD ability. Can only be used if the user has 10 Thorns. Uses up all the user's Thorns and places a veil of thorns on all partymembers with in 15 yalms of the user for 10 seconds. Whenever an affected partymember damages a single target using a spell or weaponskill (excluding Damage-over-Time effects), the thorns will damage that target for additional damage equal to 25% of the original damage done (caps at 600 damage, only applies to the first hit if the spell or weaponskill hits multiple times). Instant cast time. 180 second cooldown.

I thought of this idea because I kind of feel like it would add a little more mechanical reward to WHMs, like how DPS classes have mechanics that they have to maintain and/or build up a resource or buff. Build up your Thorns and you are rewarded with bigger DPS.
I feel like healers lack mechanical rewards, or at least big mechanical rewards like DPS (and WARs) have.

While I'd like to see something like this on all healers and heals that deal damage, let's not give WHM any more damage, please...

I'm sorry....but with Assize and Holy being massively OP already? No.

I mean I love the idea...but WHM is very OP to me.....and I love that...but lets not over do it lol.

Us Scholars want our DPS throne back, T.T

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Originally Posted by NephthysVasudan

I'm sorry....but with Assize and Holy being massively OP already? No.

I mean I love the idea...but WHM is very OP to me.....and I love that...but lets not over do it lol.

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By what metric? Dungeon trash?

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

By what metric? Dungeon trash?

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Apparently Dungeon trash is a metric to justify us not getting any party utility or buffs. Anyway last I checked Sch was still beating Whm in savage in terms of DPS.

Lets not even get started on Crit buffs which is what will be scaling extremely well moving forward and Whm has 0 of that. Or party utility vs Selfish Dps.

But you know Holy so OP lets spam Holy during boss fights.

I'm with basketofseals and Jxnibbles on this one, dungeon trash isn't that good of a metric.

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Originally Posted by Eloah

Us Scholars want our DPS throne back, T.T

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You guys are still the top DPS during Savage raids though. >3>

But a DPS-based mechanic could still be interesting. :D

How about this: an ability that uses a small amount of the Faerie Gauge to cast?

ex.
Natural Selection: oGCD Ability. Cost 20 Faerie Gauge points. Damage all enemies with in 8 yalms of the user. Potency of 100, 175 if the affected has one Bio or Miasma spell inflicted by the user on the, 225 if they have two Bio and/or Miasma spells on them, or 260 if they have three Bio and/or Miasma spells on the. Instant cast time. 60 second cooldown.

The animation could include the user's Fairy tethering to them for a second while they release an explosion of aether from their body.

Utility is thw big thing WHM needs. Making DB not require Lilies is a step in the right direction. I thought maybe thorns could be something akin to Thorn Bind Hostage from Log Horizon.

"Thorn Bind Hostage causes five shining blue roots[number of roots depends on the skill level] to erupt from the earth and entangle the target. When an ally cuts each of these roots, they cause additional damage. The amount of damage varies by the skill of the caster, but the maximum is said to be 1,000 damage per thorn cut. Because this damage occurs at the same time as that inflicted by the ally's own melee attack, it is difficult for an opponent to survive the cumulative damage using HP regeneration powers"

Where "number of roots" is based on thorns the WHM has accumulated. And instead of only being activates by melee attacks it could be activated by any weapon skill, spell, ability etc. from allies.

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Originally Posted by Jxnibbles

Apparently Dungeon trash is a metric to justify us not getting any party utility or buffs. Anyway last I checked Sch was still beating Whm in savage in terms of DPS.

Lets not even get started on Crit buffs which is what will be scaling extremely well moving forward and Whm has 0 of that. Or party utility vs Selfish Dps.

But you know Holy so OP lets spam Holy in boss fights.

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Why does WHM need party buffs? It has a use as the most valuable healer during progression due to it's (sometimes overly) powerful heals and high number of tools, and is the most represented healer in savage if I remember correctly.

Giving WHM a party damage buff would just be pointless homogenization. If you were to look further, you'd see that SCH has ALWAYS beaten WHM in personal dps, even though WHM has always been mathematically superior. Literally always. Since 2.0 all the way until now.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

I thought maybe thorns could be something akin to Thorn Bind Hostage from Log Horizon.

Where "number of roots" is based on thorns the WHM has accumulated. And instead of only being activates by melee attacks it could be activated by any weapon skill, spell, ability etc. from allies.

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Hmmmm...
Something that adds additional damage to the party's damage could be interesting.

How about something like:

Nophica's Bramble: oGCD ability. Can only be used if the user has 10 Thorns. Uses up all the user's Thorns and places a veil of thorns on all partymembers with in 15 yalms of the user for 10 seconds. Whenever an affected partymember damages a single target using a spell or weaponskill (excluding Damage-over-Time effects), the thorns will damage that target for additional damage equal to 25% of the original damage done (caps at 600 damage, only applies to the first hit if the spell or weaponskill hits multiple times). Instant cast time. 180 second cooldown.

Ooh that sounds cool too.

WHM needs utility because why should a job be useful in just Progression? Shouldn't we aim for all jobs being useful in all situations? As it stands now WHM is "supposed" to be replaced by an AST after prog, and every team just looks the same... PLD, WAR, AST, SCH, DRG, NIN, BRD, MCH (might change to MNK after 4.2?)

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Ooh that sounds cool too.

WHM needs utility because why should a job be useful in just Progression? Shouldn't we aim for all jobs being useful in all situations? As it stands now WHM is "supposed" to be replaced by an AST after prog, and every team just looks the same... PLD, WAR, AST, SCH, DRG, NIN, BRD, MCH (might change to MNK after 4.2?)

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It is useful post progression. It's a healer, and it does that well. Having all jobs be equally useful in all situations is just a ridiculous pipe dream, and chasing that just leads to mass homogenization.

Jobs having niches and unique skills is what makes them different, and as long as those differences are meaningful(which they should be 100%) then there will always be a "best."

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

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I'm not saying jobs can't be unique. But utility is very important to groups, which is why SAM and BLM are so weak right now. WHM is pretty fine right now, but extra utility wouldn't hurt. And like we've already seen in this thread, just because it gains more utility in some form doesn't mean it homogenizes with AST or SCH. The utility can take many different forums.

Really, what major benefit does a WHM give to a party once you know the healing requirements?

Honestly, boosting WHM's personal DPS isn't really a crazy idea, since it's supposed to be what sets it apart from AST in the personal vs raid DPS dichotomy. Maybe not a new AoE, cause WHM already has a lot of that, but increasing DoT potency, giving back the damage on Fluid Aura (or another oGCD to replace it, as the OP suggested), would do good to WHM and wouldn't really tip the balance in the favor or detriment of anyone.

I like the idea that WHM brings reliable, high damage, -higher than it is now, at least,-
while AST brings the RNG possibility of increasing rDPS by a higher margin given the right cards. As it stands right now, AST's rDPS contribution is almost always higher than a WHM's because the cards are pretty significant. If WHM had a means to close that gap a little bit more and make it so AST's superior contribution is a little bit more dependant on luck, it could set that problem to rest.

That said, I don't really think WHM vs AST is necessarily the core "problem" of current healer balance, but SCH's hilariously overpowered state as of 4.2. And even considering this, everyone in the healer forums seems to agree that balance is pretty much great right now, despite the somewhat evident, yet arguably deceiving advantages of AST.

Hello people!
Just another idea to make lilys loveable again after their usefulness was reduced to practically nothing after the patch. Stuff was based on the idea that the CDR on random abilities is rather uncontrollable and whm needs cool flexible moves.

Secrets of the Lily I

For every Cure and every Cure II, as well as for every critical Regen tick (@50% chance), a Lily is generated. A Lily can only be generated if the source skill actually heals the target. Up to 3 Lilys can be stored at a time.
Casting Presence of mind, Largesse, Assize, Asylum or Divine Bension will activate all Lilys on the Healing Gauge.
On activation, all Lilys all removed from the Healing Gauge and a respective number of stacks of Blooming is granted.
Under the Effect of Blooming, several Spells are enhanced. Blooming stacks fade after 15 seconds. The Maximum Stack number of Blooming is 3.

Cure
Under the Effect of Blooming, Cure can be casted instantly and grants the target 12 seconds of Regen, but costs 25% more mana.

Cure II
Under the Effect of Blooming, Cure II grants the target 15 seconds of Regen as additional effect.

All Stone spells
Under the Effect of Blooming, Stone spells are changed into Banish. (Or just get an additional effect because potency)
Banish has the same cast time as Stone X, but increases the targets damage taken by 3% for 3 seconds. Banish costs 50% more mana than a normal Stone spell.

Medica
Under the Effect of Blooming, Medica grants 3 seconds of Regen to every target hit, but costs 30% more mana. Additional Effect at Level 70: Grants 2 Stacks of Plenary Indulgence while under the Effect of Blooming.

Numbers should be taken not too seriously, i've not done the math, so the upgrades could be a little too strong.
I think this stuff would be even easy to implement. No new spells or animations, just a few lines of copied code :p

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

I'm not saying jobs can't be unique. But utility is very important to groups, which is why SAM and BLM are so weak right now. WHM is pretty fine right now, but extra utility wouldn't hurt. And like we've already seen in this thread, just because it gains more utility in some form doesn't mean it homogenizes with AST or SCH. The utility can take many different forums.

Really, what major benefit does a WHM give to a party once you know the healing requirements?

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As an aside, I would like to state my continuous befuddlement at the FFXIV community for equating utility with damage buffs.

Now with that being said, you could practically apply this logic to all jobs. What does DRG offer when the party can comfortably beat enrage?

The answer is the community just needs to stop treating damage as the end all be all stat. The days of skipping Lapis and Soar are gone. You're not going to skip anything noteworthy just by min/maxing dps.

It does not matter, at all, in the slightest how jobs are doing after you clear. Consistency is infinitely more important than clear speed. So then you pick your flavor group comp from there. Enrage getting you down? Go ahead and run whatever the top team meta is right now, but most people don't get stuck at enrage for months. They get stuck on mechanics, and WHEN they get stuck on mechanics, those other jobs are there for you.

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

As an aside, I would like to state my continuous befuddlement at the FFXIV community for equating utility with damage buffs.

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Because damaging things is fun and feels the most rewarding to the broadest audience. :D
It's also the only way to progress and/or end a fight.
Consistency and Survivability are nice but if a party can't do enough damage at the end of the day, they can't progress due to all end-game fights having Hard Enrages.
A little boost to damage (or even giving heals more chances to DPS by doing mechanics correctly) can make a world of difference when there are DPS checks in fights, like beating normal Exdeath in o4s.
Plus, damage buffs are flashy and fun for everyone. :D

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

snip.

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But the faster you can kill something the faster you win, so the easier it is to farm etc.

If a player is equally comfortable with playing WHM and AST why would they pick WHM for a clear? I'm not saying WHM is in a bad spot, all I am saying is that extra team damage would be welcome.

People don't equate "utility" with "damage buffs", but more with "things that allow more damage in some way". Shields, crit bonuses, direct hit bonuses, piercing/slashing debuff, decreasing damage received... These things either grant more damage to your allies' attacks, or reduce required healing to allow more damage from healers.

There's a reason PLD is considered king of utility among tanks, even though it's utility is much more defence oriented than WAR.

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

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or

Ultima: oGCD Spell. That's an AoE attack that have base 100 potency + 25 pot for each consumed thorn (-10% for the 2nd target, -20% for the 3rd, etc, you know the drill) within a 8-yalms range with a 3-minutes cooldown. That can proc after a combo of Stone IV or Holy > Aero II > Aero III > Assize, creating some sort of "Rotation".

I've been beating the drum for WHM to get damage shields for a while now on these forums. It could even have an elemental basis to fit the idea that our powers come from the elements. Maybe even provide different damage shield behavior based on which is used.

I'm sick of dpsing. I want to support the party. That's why I chose the green role.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

But the faster you can kill something the faster you win, so the easier it is to farm etc.

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Is it 4 fights a week. Assuming you're good enough to one shot it, that's less than 45 minutes, and the optimal dps comp will shave off maybe a total of 12 once you out gear it. If you wipe even once, you're back at even times with safer strats. I would give it to you once savaged looting is unlocked again, but normally this is not an important metric at all. If you're so good that you can one-shot the whole tier each week, what does it even matter what you bring?

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

If a player is equally comfortable with playing WHM and AST why would they pick WHM for a clear? I'm not saying WHM is in a bad spot, all I am saying is that extra team damage would be welcome.

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How about because maybe they enjoy that job?

Let's flip this, why would you ever bring an AST if WHM get's a party damage buff? Cards are honestly really crap. In fact they might be the worst party damage boost in the game except maybe embolden. If WHMs can completely blow through all healer checks, allow their co-healer more dps uptime with their higher throughput, never have to worry about mana, bring extra safety with tankbusters with benison, AND provide a damage boost, what merits does AST have anymore?

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

People don't equate "utility" with "damage buffs", but more with "things that allow more damage in some way". Shields, crit bonuses, direct hit bonuses, piercing/slashing debuff, decreasing damage received... These things either grant more damage to your allies' attacks, or reduce required healing to allow more damage from healers.

There's a reason PLD is considered king of utility among tanks, even though it's utility is much more defence oriented than WAR.

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It's more of all damage buffs are utility, but not all utility is damage buffs. What's the difference between dragon sight and raging strikes? That it affects another person? It's still just a damage buff. We have a word for those. Why lump them in with utility?

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

matter what you bring?

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Some people enjoy killing fights as quickly as they can, and in that case for the sake of shaving precious seconds off it is quite important which job you bring in order to take that time off. Healers in particular have vastly different tools in order to handle fights and improve their uptime more than any other job type in the game. WHM right now allocates significantly more GCDs to healing than other jobs because of how bad their oGCDs are compared to AST or SCH.

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

How about because maybe they enjoy that job?

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Sure, play the job you want. But that's no reason not to be unhappy with the way the job works. WHM's DPS is the only thing that makes it as useful as AST, and even then it's still grappling with SCH for the top healer DPS spot. Play the job you wanna play, but there's nothing wrong with being unhappy about the way your job works. There is something silly about taking pot shots at people playing another job using the trite excuse of homogenization. And if your group is serious about killing things quickly you might have to bite the bullet and play a healer you don't like (AST for example) in order to meet the group's needs. Playing a job that isn't as good as another job sucks even if you like it. So you want buffs or changes to bring it closer to par or improve the way a bad mechanic works. And these threads get made.

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

We have a word for those. Why lump them in with utility?

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All utility that doesn't strictly prevent you from dying decreases either the amount of healing required or increases the amount of damage done. Less healing is more damage, more damage is more damage. Utility that reduces enmity needs less tank stance (if you use it) and fewer aggro combos, which is more damage.

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Originally Posted by DaulBan

Some people enjoy killing fights as quickly as they can, and in that case for the sake of shaving precious seconds off it is quite important which job you bring in order to take that time off. Healers in particular have vastly different tools in order to handle fights and improve their uptime more than any other job type in the game. WHM right now allocates significantly more GCDs to healing than other jobs because of how bad their oGCDs are compared to AST or SCH.

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I mean there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't see any point in throwing damage buffs on WHM. That doesn't fix the "issue," it just changes the dynamic.

There's nothing wrong with WHM other than people overvaluing speed kills. It has its moment where it's best, just like AST and SCH do. The difference isn't so big that it's a huge handicap to bring WHM over the other two.

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Originally Posted by DaulBan

Sure, play the job you want. But that's no reason not to be unhappy with the way the job works. WHM's DPS is the only thing that makes it as useful as AST, and even then it's still grappling with SCH for the top healer DPS spot. Play the job you wanna play, but there's nothing wrong with being unhappy about the way your job works. There is something silly about taking pot shots at people playing another job using the trite excuse of homogenization. And if your group is serious about killing things quickly you might have to bite the bullet and play a healer you don't like (AST for example) in order to meet the group's needs. Playing a job that isn't as good as another job sucks even if you like it. So you want buffs or changes to bring it closer to par or improve the way a bad mechanic works. And these threads get made.

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Just because people overuse homogenization, doesn't mean it's a criticism to be ignored. Nobody is taking pot shots. No insults were traded. As far as I'm concerned we were having a perfectly healthy discussion.

Now more to the point, jobs are different. That's a good thing. It means people can enjoy a role they might not otherwise like. More to the point, it allows for a more even level of imperfect balance. If WHM gets damage buffs, then they become incredibly similar to AST, and a greater/lesser than thinking is more obvious. Why would you bring one healer when it's just inferior to the other one? At the moment, it's more so based on your group's needs. You want safety? Go WHM. Need extra damage? Go AST.

Altough I do not dpsing all that much while I heal as an astro (quite dull and cards actually keep me quite busy), a game play à bit more deep would be more than welcome, at least for solo content. Spamming malefic3 is just dull.

I don't want dps spells to take 2 slots of my precious 3 future new spells. But I would like something new yeah.

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Altough I do not dpsing all that much while I heal as an astro (quite dull and cards actually keep me quite busy), a game play à bit more deep would be more than welcome, at least for solo content. Spamming malefic3 is just dull.

I don't want dps spells to take 2 slots of my precious 3 future new spells. But I would like something new yeah.

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For AST, they could just remove the Lady of Crown/healing effect from Minor Arcana. We can't really rely on an RNG heal that is weaker then Benefic II.
IF they want to keep it RNG with two options, they could change Lady of Crown to something that give the user x% of MP.

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

There's nothing wrong with WHM other than people overvaluing speed kills.

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This. (aside from the trash lily system, of course)

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

There's nothing wrong with WHM other than people overvaluing speed kills.

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Now that's just crazy talk! Next you'll expect me to believe that AST is the least-represented class in Sigmascape Savage right now! Everyone knows that's unpossible because their buffs are OP and nobody cares about healing output during progression! By god, soon you'll be telling me that they have the least amount of clears for Deltascape Savage, too!

Seriously, it's okay for a class to be not be meta for speed runs. Restoration Shaman in WoW is an example of a class that is invaluable for progression but never brought along for Mythic speed clears because of how their Mastery inherently loses value the more geared/better the players in the raid get.

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

Now that's just crazy talk! Next you'll expect me to believe that AST is the least-represented class in Sigmascape Savage right now! Everyone knows that's unpossible because their buffs are OP and nobody cares about healing output during progression! By god, soon you'll be telling me that they have the least amount of clears for Deltascape Savage, too!

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I think that has more to do with a combination of WHM/SCH being a better/easier pair to use for progression the AST/SCH or WHM/AST. Once people start to get more acclimated to the raids and geared up, we should see a shift to AST to boost raid damage.
Another reason could be that WHM and SCH might feel more personally satisfying to play because they can weave their oGCD heals with their damage spells.

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

I think that has more to do with a combination of WHM/SCH being a better/easier pair to use for progression the AST/SCH or WHM/AST. Once people start to get more acclimated to the raids and geared up, we should see a shift to AST to boost raid damage.
Another reason could be that WHM and SCH might feel more personally satisfying to play because they can weave their oGCD heals with their damage spells.

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And you think people aren't acclimated to Deltascape now? I also linked that just so people couldn't throw out the "WHMs are useless for farm content" nonsense.

The fact is, people are playing whatever healer they want to play outside of an EXTREMELY tiny niche of speed kill content, where frankly everyone should be expected to be flexible in order to reach that level of perfection/output. No one is dumping their WHMs from raids en masse (even after the tier is on farm), and nowhere are they being excluded from PFs. Literally the only place that is memeing about them being in a bad spot is, ironically, this subforum. Could lilies use improvements, mostly with regards to their generation? Sure. Does WHM need party buffs in their current state? Hell no.