WHM Blood Lily Rework/QoL Change

A few weeks ago, I made a post regarding the changes I want for WHM. I admit, that was before I started playing the job again after a year. Granted, WHM in general is still an okay job. Definitely miles ahead of Stormblood WHM. But it's still an average job. We probably won't get any major changes until 6.0 (not holding my breath for 5.4 but it's still possible) but there is one QoL change I'd like the job to have. And it's the blood lily mechanic.

I don't like the fact that Afflatus Misery is locked behind healing skills. Heck, some people on this forum don't like it either. It should be changed similar to how Black Mage gets its Polyglots. After a certain amount of seconds, a blood lily will appear.

It's a simple change, really. Lilies generate every 30 seconds in battle. At 90 seconds, you get three lilies. So just change it so that a Blood Lily will appear on the job gauge every 90 seconds. See? Simple! I think a change like this is a great QoL change.

If you disagree though, share your thoughts. We need to have more WHM talk anyway so I welcome the discussion.

I prefer it how it is. I like having a spell that makes up some of the lost DPS due to having to use GCD heals. It's a unique function to WHM in a sea of role conformity.

Afflatus Misery is designed to allow you to 'catch up' with DPS for the GCD heals you use.
It's working as intended.

Also prefer the current version. It would make Rapture and Solace a straight up 300 potency dps loss and optimal play would be to ignore lilies entirely.

0 mana heals that refund dps and create sorely needed weave/movement windows are great QoL.

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Originally Posted by AmurT

While it probably is better for DPS reasons, I think I would prefer Misery to not be changed into another generic cooldown you use whenever it lights up (Assize).

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Now I think of it, I wonder why they haven't just turned Assize into a 2 charge instant GCD (with slight potency adjustment). That would allow us to hold it for healing and create more weave windows instead of requiring them.

Were something like this to happen I'd rather they delete Rapture and Solace entirely. Give us a 300 potency, instant dps ability that costs one lily instead and also feeds the Blood Lily as it does now. It'd keep the weaving/movement utility of lillies but open them up to be used for movement and weaving even when healing isn't necessary.

And yes, I know you technically can use them now even when you don't need to heal but it can really be a dps grey area. Were it just an instant, free Glare it'd be a way to keep your GCD rolling productively. It'd also mean some more casts of our base GCD heals (like Medica II) in fights where you aren't able to cover damage with oGCDs alone.

I'm also not opposed to lillies as they exist now, to be fair. I'm more offering this as an alternative to OP's suggestion.

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

It's a simple change, really. Lilies generate every 30 seconds in battle. At 90 seconds, you get three lilies. So just change it so that a Blood Lily will appear on the job gauge every 90 seconds. See? Simple! I think a change like this is a great QoL change.

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I agree that it's kind of weird since sometimes since it bugs me to see my lilies full and I find myself hoping for some downtime so I can spam needless Raptures just to trigger Misery.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Afflatus Misery is designed to allow you to 'catch up' with DPS for the GCD heals you use.
It's working as intended.

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In theory, yes. The end result though is RNG creates a multi case scenario. A good comparison is to use NINs dream within a dream. I know, "say what!?" The reason I pick this skill despite being and ogcd ability with its own mechanic is because it is a threefold attack. By 'threefold' that means there are three consecutive hits at 200 pot each for a total of 600, instead of an animation showing three hits that actually only hits once for 600 pot. What happens here is that each hit can crit, direct hit, or both. Same thing when it comes WHM 'replaced' GCDs when using Misery.

In order for Misery to truly return those three GCDs, it would also have to be a threefold attack, which I am all for. Seeing three magical blasts akin to flowery fireworks would just be sick. We would lose those 100k single Misery casts, but when you see potentially three 50k+ in a sequence, it will be very satisfying indeed.

What they would have to do at this point is make the lily mechanic less passive. I am ok with the afflatus skills being tied to the lilies, but WHM needs to do something to earn those lilies rather than just wait for them to generate.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

In theory, yes. The end result though is RNG creates a multi case scenario. A good comparison is to use NINs dream within a dream. I know, "say what!?" The reason I pick this skill despite being and ogcd ability with its own mechanic is because it is a threefold attack. By 'threefold' that means there are three consecutive hits at 200 pot each for a total of 600, instead of an animation showing three hits that actually only hits once for 600 pot. What happens here is that each hit can crit, direct hit, or both. Same thing when it comes WHM 'replaced' GCDs when using Misery.

In order for Misery to truly return those three GCDs, it would also have to be a threefold attack, which I am all for. Seeing three magical blasts akin to flowery fireworks would just be sick. We would lose those 100k single Misery casts, but when you see potentially three 50k+ in a sequence, it will be very satisfying indeed.

What they would have to do at this point is make the lily mechanic less passive. I am ok with the afflatus skills being tied to the lilies, but WHM needs to do something to earn those lilies rather than just wait for them to generate.

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The chances of getting 3 consecutive hits to crit would be less than getting your single Misery to crit, yet they'd have to be balanced the same. So you'd see those bigger numbers a lot less frequently.

Misery has a potency of 900. If it were three hits, they'd have to be 300 each.
Let's say for simplicity's sake, a crit is 20% chance and increases damage by 20%.

1 crit Misery would deal 1,080 potency damage.
3x crit Misery would deal 1,080 potency damage (360+360+360)

1 crit Misery has a 20% chance of triggering.
3x crit Misery has a 60%*40%*20% chance, so 4.8%.

If only 1/3 hits crit (60%-28.8% = 31.2% chance), it's 960 potency.
If 2/3 hits crit (60%*40%-4.8% = 18.6% chance) then it's 1020 potency.

If you average it out over thousands of casts, then the DPS output would be the same, but over the course of one fight, with maybe 5-10 casts in total, you're not likely to see any benefit from it. Your parses will be more consistent, but you won't see as much variation, and you'll lose those cases where you got lucky and did manage to get a few big crits out.

The other advantage to misery is it lets you squeeze more DPS out under raid buffs. While you effectively only get 3 out of 4 Glares from it, it lets you put those three Glares into a single GCD that can align with most 90/180s raid buffs, further mitigating the penalty for using them in the first place.

Removing lilies from damage would essentially bring us back to StB WHM. I'd rather not go down that route.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

In theory, yes. The end result though is RNG creates a multi case scenario.

In order for Misery to truly return those three GCDs, it would also have to be a threefold attack

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Let base be the potency of an attack.
Let rate be the probability of an attack critting.
Let multiplier be the potency multiplier for an attack that crits.

Let the expected potency of an attack be calculated using the formula
expected = rate*base*multiplier + (1-rate)*base
expected = base*(rate*multiplier + 1 - rate)


The expected potency of one attack with potency pot is equal to the total expected potency of three attacks with potency pot/3.

Direct proof:

Substituting the potency of one large attack, base = pot
expected_large = pot*(rate*multiplier + 1 - rate)

Substituting the potency of one small attack, base = pot/3
expected_small = pot/3*(rate*multiplier + 1 - rate)

Considering three small potency attacks, each with potency pot/3
expected_3small = 3*expected_small
expected_3small = 3*pot/3*(rate*multiplier+1-rate)
expected_3small = pot*(rate*multiplier + 1 - rate)

The expected potency of one attack with potency pot is equal to the total expected potency of three attacks with potency pot/3.

QED


A similar proof can be given for direct hits, and the two can be combined into a proof that accounts for both critical and direct hits.