WHM Rework Thread (Ideas and Suggestions are Welcome)

Last year, I made a post about a list of changes that I’d like WHM to have. Thinking about it, my post was pretty stupid, and I’d like to do another one. WHM was the first job I leveled when I first started playing the game back in Stormblood’s lifespan. I loved it despite it being a very weak job. In Shadowbringers, WHM avoided the same butchering that AST and SCH received, but only because the job’s tool kit was limited in the first place. Now, WHM is in a decent spot, but let’s be honest here, it still needs some work.

This post contains a list of changes based on all the WHM feedback I’ve seen in the forums for the past year. So. Let’s get started. Please note this will be several posts long.

Edit: Freakin' SE with these character limits on their Forums. I just wanted one long post :(

Edit 2: Decided to make more changes. If you see bolded letters or words in RED, that's a nerf from the game's current state. If it's GREEN, then it's a buff.

Edit 3: Cleaned out the formatting of my posts and added MartaDemireux rework suggestions for Divine Seal and Temperance.

The Lily System

The Lily system was introduced back in SB. The mechanic itself was useless as the lilies themselves didn’t actually do much. Players wanted SE to rework the lily system entirely and they got their wish. This new Lily system in ShB was one of the only few good things that SE did when approaching healers in ShB. I approve of the changes, but I still think we can take it a bit further.

Currently, the lily skills that WHM has are only instant cast GCD healing skills. That’s a great thing because it alleviates a major issue the job had back in Stormblood. But as good as this mechanic is, it can be expanded upon. One of the things I advocate is for the lily system to be introduced early, particularly before level 50. Right now, you get your first lily skill at level 52 (Afflatus Solace). We can change that by expanding the lily system to not just heals, but DPS and Utility skills.

Upon obtaining the WHM job, players should immediately receive this trait and skills:

• Trait: Secret of the Lily I – Adds a Lily to your healing gauge for every 30 seconds you are engaged in combat, up to a maximum of 1 Lily. Also allows Elemental lilies to bloom. Acquired at level 30.
• Skill: Stoneskin – Creates a barrier around self or target party member that absorbs damage equivalent to a heal of 300 potency. Consumes 1 Lily. Acquired at level 30.

Edit: Because I've been hearing Divine Benison being locked behind lilies was unpopular in SB, I'll remove the 1 Lily Requirement for this and Stoneskin.

We get our first blood lily skill at level 30 with the reintroduction of Stoneskin. This skill was in WHM’s tool kit in ARR and HW, and it made no sense for SE to remove it in my opinion. Stoneskin will be a single target mitigation shield that is weaker than Divine Benison. However, I want it that way because WHM will receive a trait that upgrades the skill to Divine Benison at level 66.


Trait: Divinity – Upgrades Stoneskin to the skill Divine Benison. Acquired at level 66.
Skill: Divine Benison - Creates a barrier around self or target party member that absorbs damage equivalent to a heal of 500 potency. Consumes 1 Lily

• Additional Effect: If the damage absorbed is equivalent to the potency of the shield, the player or target party member’s HP will be restored
• Cure Potency: 600

Notice the little buff there? I got that idea came from DRK’s The Blackest Night ability and SCH’s Excogitation. If the shield breaks, the targeted player will have their HP restored. I might be asking too much here but I figured it’ll be a cool, unique thing for WHM’s to have.

I’d also like to have another ARR and HW skill returned to WHM. And that skill is Divine Seal.

• Skill: Divine Seal – Rework Suggested by MartaDemireux: Increases the potency of your next 2 healing skills by 1.5x. Does not include Afflatus Solace, Afflatus Rapture, and Benediction. Consumes 1 Lily. Acquired at level 42.
• For example, Casting Cure II with Divine Seal up will increase the Heal Potency from 550 to 825 (550 * 1.5).
• Due to this change, there is no longer a 20s duration of this skill.
• Recast - 45s

This is a skill that WHM players want to have back for a long time now. Yes, we have Temperance, but we don’t get that skill till level 80. Add this back to WHM’s tool kit and then get a trait for Temperance at level 80.
Another thing I want to talk about is the Secret of the Lily traits. When reaching level 30, this trait will allow only 1 lily to bloom. Additional traits can be acquired while leveling the job.

• Trait: Secret of the Lily II: Adds a Lily to your healing gauge for every 30 seconds you are engaged in combat, up to a maximum of 2 Lilies. Acquired at level 52.
• Trait: Secret of the Lily III: Adds a Lily to your healing gauge for every 30 seconds you are engaged in combat, up to a maximum of 3 Lilies. Acquired at level 68.
• Trait: Secret of the Lily IV: Adds a Lily to your healing gauge for every 30 seconds you are engaged in combat, up to a maximum of 4 Lilies. Acquired at level 76.

I’m increasing the number of lilies to four due to the two additional skills that requires lily use (Stoneskin/Divine Benison and Divine Seal/Temperance). Also, I have to give Deceptus some credit here because he brought up a very good point in one of his posts. Currently, when three lilies in bloom, it stops you from trying to get more. It shouldn't. It should keep going, just like the BLM Enochian Gauge keeps going if they have 2 nodes of Polygot.

One more thing. Since we have four lilies now, I suggest that we increase the number of lilies needed for a Blood lily to bloom. Just increase it from 3 to 4. That’s it.

DPS

One of the big problems with Shadowbringer’s healers is that their DPS rotation is very boring with only 1 DPS, 1 DoT, and 1 AoE skill. In SB, WHM’s DPS toolkit wasn’t that better, but it had the AoE DoT skill: Aero III. Like Divine Seal, WHMs want this back.

• Skill: Aero III - Deals wind damage with a potency of 40 to target and all enemies nearby it. Acquired at level 62.
• Additional Effect: Wind Damage over Time
• Potency: 30
• Duration: 15s

You’ve probably noticed in the lily section that I mentioned the words Elemental lilies. That’s because WHM’s DPS toolkit should revolve around a lily system as well. How this works is that certain “Elemental” lilies will bloom depending on which skill you cast. For example, you cast Stone IV for a certain number of times, let’s say three times. This causes a “Wind” lily to bloom. This “Wind” lily will cause the next Aero II or Aero III skill to have its damage buffed.

Let’s take a look at Aero III again as an example.

• Skill: Aero III - Deals wind damage with a potency of 40 to target and all enemies nearby it.
• Additional Effect: Wind Damage over Time
• Potency: 30
• Duration: 15s

If a WHM has a “Wind” lily bloomed, the skill will change to this.

• Skill: Aero III (Enhanced with Wind Lily) - Deals wind damage with a potency of 55 to target and all enemies nearby it.
• Additional Effect: Wind Damage over Time
• Potency: 45
• Duration: 18s

See what I did there? I’m expanding the lily system so that it can affect WHM’s DPS skills similar to BLM’s casting of Ice and Fire skills and Enochian. Special thanks to Atmaweapon510 for suggesting this on one of his posts.

But WHM is a healer, not a DPS. Therefore, these new elemental lilies should start with the job’s healing kit. How does this work you might ask? Well, after casting a certain number of healing skills, a “Water” lily should bloom. Then, after casting a “Water” related DPS skill, a “Earth” lily will bloom, followed by a “Wind” lily after casting a “Earth” DPS Skill. Together, it should look like this:

• Water Lily: Is bloomed after casting 3 healing skills. These skills include: Cure, Cure II, Cure III, Medica, Medica II, and Tetragrammaton, (Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture too?). The Water Lily will then enhance the WHM’s “Water” DPS skill.
• Edit: If nobody likes having lily skills locked with WHM's healing spells, then we can change this so that casting 3 Stone/Glare spells will make the "Water" lily bloom instead.

• Skill: Fluid Aura (Enhanced with Water Lily) – Deals water damage with a potency of 150 to a target.
• Additional Effect: Interrupts Target.

With this Water lily, we can finally solve the useless “Fluid Aura skill” issue. WHM is a job focused on communicating with the elementals, particularly Water, Earth, and Wind. The job deserves to have a Water skill. If Y’shtola can have water skills in her DPS rotation as a BLM, then WHM can have one too. This of course changes a couple of things with WHM’s tool kit.

• Skill: Water II – Deals Water damage with a potency of 150 to a single target. Acquired at level 54.
• Additional Effect: Interrupts Target
• If enhanced with a Water lily – Damage potency is increased to 180.

• Skill: Water III – Deals Water damage with a potency of 220 to a single target. Acquired at level 68.
• Additional Effect: Interrupts Target
• If enhanced with a Water lily – Damage potency is increased to 260.

• Skill: Banish – Deals Light damage with a potency of 240 to a single target. Acquired at level 78.
• Additional Effect: Interrupts Target
• If enhanced with a Water lily – Damage potency is increased to 280.

These new skills would require new traits to be included in the WHM’s tool kit. I don’t have to explain myself too much, but these traits should be received at levels: 54, 68, and 78.

I’d also recommend removing Fluid Aura as an oGCD Skill to a GCD skill like Stone and Glare. I’ll explain more behind my reasoning later. Let’s just move on to new Stone/Glare skill.

For an “Earth” lily to bloom, the WHM player must cast their Water skill 3 times while the "Water" lily is in bloom. Once done, the “Earth” lily will appear, enhancing their base Stone/Glare skills. We already know the potencies of those skills, so let’s go over what those numbers will be if enhanced by the Earth Lily.
Edit: Because of the "Earth" lily mechanic, all Stone/Glare spells will have their potencies nerfed.

• Skill: Stone - Deals earth damage with a potency of 110. Down from 140.
• If Enhanced with an “Earth” lily – Deals Earth Damage with a potency of 140.

• Skill: Stone II - Deals earth damage with a potency of 160. Down from 200.
• If Enhanced with an “Earth” lily – Deals Earth Damage with a potency of 200.

• Skill: Stone III - Deals earth damage with a potency of 200. Down from 240.
• If Enhanced with an “Earth” lily – Deals Earth Damage with a potency of 240.

• Skill: Stone IV- Deals earth damage with a potency of 220. Down from 260
• If Enhanced with an “Earth” lily – Deals Earth Damage with a potency of 260.

• Skill: Glare - Deals Light damage with a potency of 260. Down from 300.
• If Enhanced with an “Earth” lily – Deals Light Damage with a potency of 300.

Alright, now let’s go over the “Wind” lily and how it’ll affect our Aero and Dia skills. The same rules apply, WHM must cast 3 Stone/Glare spells while the "Earth" lily is in bloom in order for the "Wind" lily to appear.

Skill: Aero – Deals wind damage with a potency of 40 to target.
Additional Effect: Wind Damage over Time
Potency: 25
Duration: 12s

• If enhanced by Wind lily: Deals wind damage with a potency of 50 to a target.
• Additional Effect: Wind Damage over Time
• Potency: 35
• Duration: 15s

Skill: Aero II – Deals wind damage with a potency of 50 to target.
Additional Effect: Wind Damage over Time
Potency: 30
Duration: 12s

• If enhanced by Wind lily: Deals wind damage with a potency of 60 to a target.
• Additional Effect: Wind Damage over Time
• Potency: 40
• Duration: 15s

Skill: Dia – Deals Light damage with a potency of 100 to target.
Additional Effect: Wind Damage over Time
Potency: 50
Duration: 12s

• If enhanced by Wind lily: Deals Light damage with a potency of 120 to a target.
• Additional Effect: Light Damage over Time
• Potency: 60
• Duration: 15s

Skill: Aero III - Deals wind damage with a potency of 40 to target and all enemies nearby it.
Additional Effect: Wind Damage over Time
Potency: 30
Duration: 15s

• If enhanced by Wind lily: Deals wind damage with a potency of 55 to target and all enemies nearby it.
• Additional Effect: Wind Damage over Time
• Potency: 45
• Duration: 18s

New Skill: Afflatus Agony (thank you ty_taurus for suggesting this) - Deals Light damage with a potency of 50 to target and all enemies nearby it. Acquired at level 74
Additional Effect: Light Damage over Time
Potency: 40
Duration: 15s

• If enhanced by Wind lily: Deals Light damage with a potency of 65 to target and all enemies nearby it.
• Additional Effect: Light Damage over Time
• Potency: 55
• Duration: 18s

You’ll notice how I’m giving WHM a lot of Light based magics. That’s because of the current situation our character is in. Novrant is a world shrouded in corrupted light, so it makes sense to give WHM these skills.

• And unlike the Water and Earth lilies, the Wind lily disappears after one use.
• Edit: Again, if noboy wants to have the lilies locked with healing spells, then we can start the elemental lily cycle by casting 3 Stone/Glare spells first. Doing so will cause a Water lily to bloom.

Also, once the “Wind” lily has been used, no further Elemental lilies will bloom. Instead, the WHM must start over with the “Water” lily by casting 3 healing skills again. And no, you cannot have multiple elemental lilies. They must be cast in a specific order: Water, then Earth, then finally Wind. You cannot have a Water lily if the Wind lily is currently bloomed.

• Should there be a time limit too? Having these lilies may seem a bit too good for WHM. I suggest giving a time limit of 25 seconds. The WHM must cast 3 of its Water and Earth lilies before moving on to the next element. If they don’t, the lily dissipates, and they’ll have to start the elemental cycle all over again. It’s also one of the reasons why I want Fluid Aura changed to a GCD skill.

• What about Holy? To be honest, I’m not sure what to do with that skill for this new elemental cycle. Aside from buffing its damage, I’d like Holy to remain untouched… for now.

With these new lilies, I believe this will make the WHM DPS kit much more fun and appealing. Though I’m aware that this new “Elemental” lily system is almost identical to BLM’s mechanic, but by God, WHM could use this!

Miscellaneous Changes

Here are some miscellaneous changes that I’d also like to see happen for WHM. Some of these include the suggestions made by Recon1o6’s post regarding the summary of healer issues.

• Buff Holy. Its damage is a bit too low for my tastes.
• Have a trait that upgrades Cure 1 to Cure 2.
• Have a trait that upgrades Medica to Cure 3.
• Have increased MP costs for all of WHM’s skills. When used correctly, the job basically has infinite MP.

Rework Temperance

• Remove the 10% Damage Reduction buff and instead replace it with something SPICIER.
• Remove the 20s skill duration time.
• Suggestion by MartaDemireux: Increases the potency of your next 3 healing skills by 2x. Does not include Afflatus Solace, Afflatus Rapture, and Benediction
• For example, Casting Cure II with Temperance up will increase the Heal Potency from 550 to 1100 (550 * 2).
• Suggested Idea: Allows WHMs to be cast a certain number their DPS and Healing spells immediately. Duration: 15s This is similar to Paladin’s Requiescat ability but built for WHM. Maybe broken but damn, just thinking about this sounds cool.
• Recast - 120s

These are all my ideas for WHM. I’m aware that these changes may fall on deaf ears due to SE’s inability to communicate with healers and some of you may not like these changes. However, I just felt like doing this for fun. Please discuss. I appreciate any feedback given. SE, please make WHM fun and unique.

You have very nice sets of ideas. However, they're problematic looking at the current healer state:

1.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

Trait: Divinity – Upgrades Stoneskin to the skill Divine Benison. Acquired at level 66.
Skill: Divine Benison - Creates a barrier around self or target party member that absorbs damage equivalent to a heal of 500 potency. Consumes 1 Lily
Additional Effect: If the damage absorbed is equivalent to the potency of the shield, the player or target party member’s HP will be restored
Cure Potency: 700

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That's a very unpopular oppinion, since nobody wants Divine Benison locked to the Lily System - they were in Stormblood and, because of the bad reception, Square Enix changed to not consume Lilies.

2.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

Water Lily: Is bloomed after casting 3 healing skills. These skills include: Cure, Cure II, Cure III, Medica, Medica II, and Tetragrammaton, (Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture too?). The Water Lily will then enhance the WHM’s “Water” DPS skill.

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Again, very unpopular. We don't want any damage skill or ablity being tied to healing - one of the reasons some people do not like Misery being locked to Lilies.
3.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

If enhanced by Wind lily: Deals Light damage with a potency of 130 to a target.
Additional Effect: Light Damage over Time
Potency: 75
Duration: 45s

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In the beggining of the post, you say we're tired of the gcd-dot-aoe monotony. However, by putting 45s duration on a skill, this will become even more problematic. WHMs want lower timed DoTs.

4.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

Skill: Aero III - Deals wind damage with a potency of 50 to target and all enemies nearby it.
Additional Effect: Wind Damage over Time
Potency: 40
Duration: 24s
If enhanced by Wind lily: Deals wind damage with a potency of 80 to target and all enemies nearby it.
Additional Effect: Wind Damage over Time
Potency: 60
Duration: 30s

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At the current healer state, WHM already outdps the other healers in the AoE category. By putting a 1600 potency AoE (and you also want Holy to be buffed), will make things even worse. That's why this one, in particular, is very utopic. Would SE do that, it would require a lot of time for the correct balancing. Holly damage is ''low'' because we have Assize and Misery, which are very good AoE abilities.

5.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

Skill: Divine Seal – Increases Healing Magic Potency by 15% Consumes 1 Lily. Acquired at level 42.

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Not necessary. Unless SE changes the current healing system, we do not need any more boost on healing potencies. Actually, most of the WHMs do not want any more healing-related skill. Gaining 2 in ShB (Solace and Rapture) was more than enough.

Anyway, most of your ideas a really good. However, despite speculation of reworking healers being always nice, we need not to be that utopic about the changes :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Caduagm

Snip

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1. I didn't know that. :( If what you said is true, then I'll remove the lily requirement for Stoneskin/Divine Benison.

2. I knew someone would bring this up. We can always switch this so that casting 3 Stone/Glare skills can cause the "Water" lily to bloom. The only reason I had it tied to healing skills is because WHM is Healer job, not DPS. I don't mind having this mechanic locked behind healing skills.

3. Made changes to my posts. All DoT times are down.

4. Changes made! All Stone/Glare spells and Aero/Dia spell potencies without their perspective lilies are nerfed on my posts. My request for Holy to be buffed also removed.

5. Divine Seal upgrades to Temperance at level 80 via a new trait. The skills are not separate from each other.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oblivion238

While adding more damage skills would certainly be more fun, I feel like it would move WHM away from the 'easy' healer it's meant to be.

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Why would anyone want WHM to be 'fun'? In a game? Are you mad?

Not to call you out specifically, but this is exactly, exactly why I roll my eyes when I'm told on these forums that 'nobody' wants to pigeonhole WHM into being the catatonia inducing 2-button wunderkind. I see it every day around here.

A note on Divine Seal: the increase to healing will need to make it worth using over Afflatus heals. I don't think 15% on it's own will make up for a full potency heal. After 7 casts of Cure II/Afflatus Solace you'll gain what you would have gotten from just using an Afflatus Solace for example. That'd put it at needing to be around 20s duration to gain its benefit and the way the game is currently designed we aren't spamming Cure II for 20s straight to gain said benefit.

Maybe it would be better if it increased the potency of your next heal by 2x or your next two heals by 1.5x each while not having a duration. Then a lily isn't gone to waste when we're spamming DPS for 30-60s.

At this stage I just want the 1 sec weave window Malefic has to be standard on all 3 healers. It makes gameplay so much smoother and it's about time they stopped using clunkiness as a balancing factor. Going back to WhM after playing AST for a bit feels like picking up a broken class. You realize Glare doesn't weave and your next window is 18 sec away and it's depressing.
It makes high end ScH/WhM depressing too, because the most optimal way to play is spam Glare/Broil and let the AST heal because AST doesn't lose dps, has ample toolkit and their GcD's are worth less potency. If I want to provide the best for my raid/static, I shouldn't be trying to use my toolkit too much.

Definitely another dps ability. Another DoT like fluid Aura or Aero is a good candidate. Giving us a weave window could also allow something like a 2 charge oGcD instant dps ability that procs off Dia ticks or such (Glare would need a small nerf to balance).
Also there needs to be more damage going out in endgame. There's just too little to heal. It's more the frequency of damage that is the issue, Savage often has gaps of 60 sec or more where you barely need a heal, so we don't get enough chance to exercise those toolkits.

Apart from that I actually like WhM and don't feel it needs to be entirely redone.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MartaDemireux

snip

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That's... actually an excellent idea! :D Since most of the time we're spamming Stone/Glare, having Divine Seal/Temperance boost your next few heals is a better alternative than a duration skill. Great suggestion. I'll add it to the list.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

snip

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I don't play AST so I don't know anything about its 1s weave window with Malefic. I forgot that WHM has a weaving issue. It's been a while since I played the job. I'm not sure how we can fix that. Need to think about it more :(