Inconsistency in Regen Healer Toolkits, Proactivity, and 1 Minute Burst

When observing regen healer kits, it is evident that WHM provides far less party mitigation utility than AST.

WHM feels the most trapped by its role, as AST has so many mitigation tools even with that regen healer tag. But this disparity in tools is also compounded by AST having both the highest healing and raid contributing damage ceiling of any healer. The difference in tool kit begins to be apparent in high end content such as savage and ultimate where mitigation (albeit not completely a healer responsibility) is often the bar in which bosses test a group's ability to impact the full party's effective HP stat beyond HP restoration, which WHM is sorely lacking relative to all other healers regardless of Regen/Shield tag.

WHM's playstyle and kit features less proactive usage of its skills outside of temperance, lily bell, and asylum. Often limited to reactively Afflatus/GCD healing the party after damage occurs as opposed to reducing the damage before it is incurred. Every other healer, including AST, makes many proactive choices regarding the SEVERAL shields and party mitigation tools available to them (most of which are tied to 1-2 min OGCDs).

Dawntrail's latest addition, Divine Caress, feels okay to use, but "okay" for a lvl 100 ability tied to an existing 2 min CD is underwhelming for a job already deprived of mitigation tools. The regen feels like an after thought given how much HP restoration throughput you already have access to (consider the uptime of regens provided by a sacred soil/kerachole + whispering dawn/physis). I believe a stronger shield and separate CD would be preferred by most WHM players than a regen that would be sufficiently compensated for with the surplus of restoration tools already available.

I would be interested in a 1 minute CD presence of mind, akin to light speed, synching with Afflatus Misery and a burst style akin to tanks. If you feel like WHMs would be conflicted with healing and doing damage during 1 minute bursts, then perhaps consider making healing GCDs used during presence of mind extend the duration by a GCD so it's a net neutral in that case. Or don't and make WHMs juggle the choice of damage or healing (i.e. optimization/choice, which is a good thing for players to have even on easy jobs).

Likewise, not starting with a blood lily to spend in the opener seems to put WHM a bit behind compared to other healers. This design seems dated, especially in consideration of the recent DRG life window changes. I would be in favor of starting with a free Afflatus Misery at the start of combat to put into the 1st set of raid buffs.

In summary, WHM is lacking in party mitigation, proactive gameplay, and opener burst. I believe any of those changes would help bring it more in line with the current designs of other healer jobs this expansion.

The pure/shield healer split is becoming meaningless. They keep adding mitigation to "pure" healers and raw healing to "shield" healers.
This was a half-measure from the start, because they don't enforce pure+shield comps, and want to be flexible so any pair of the four healers ends up in a party for the DF.
It was a failed experiment, at this point I'd prefer if they scraped this concept and had a look at healers as a whole.
But well... *points at healerstrike thread*

‘Regen healers?’
*Laughs in Seraphism*

The pure/barrier split is just a hilarious joke at this point lol

WHM is the easy-access class for pure healing. If you want complexity, you go AST and have a blAST.
It's like complaining that SMN doesn't get enough to do more damage compared to BLM. Like... yeah it doesn't get the same level of complexity where you need a 5 page google doc to play it effectively, because it's meant to be the easy access class that is extremely hard to screw up.

Comparing WHM to other healers is silly. Much like comparing SGE to SCH, and then it turns out that SCH has a WAY higher skill expression and powerful abilities to use IF used well. SGE is like the entry-level job for barrier healing. And it's good, but once stuff goes to heck... SGE is not gonne be the healer to save the day because it doesn't get nearly enough flexibility compared to other healers.

It's okay to have this difference in damage/healing output. Of course the "easy" jobs should still be able to keep up for savage/ultimate content, but it's fine if they are slightly 'worse' for the sake of comfortableness.

maybe WHM gets less party mitigation BECAUSE they get more 'reactive heals' that just work fine. Mitigation be damned, as long as people don't die, WHM will be outputting massive, MASSIVE healing power if played well, and that's ok.

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Originally Posted by Chiru_Kai

WHM is the easy-access class for pure healing. If you want complexity, you go AST and have a blAST.
It's like complaining that SMN doesn't get enough to do more damage compared to BLM. Like... yeah it doesn't get the same level of complexity where you need a 5 page google doc to play it effectively, because it's meant to be the easy access class that is extremely hard to screw up.

Comparing WHM to other healers is silly. Much like comparing SGE to SCH, and then it turns out that SCH has a WAY higher skill expression and powerful abilities to use IF used well. SGE is like the entry-level job for barrier healing. And it's good, but once stuff goes to heck... SGE is not gonne be the healer to save the day because it doesn't get nearly enough flexibility compared to other healers.

It's okay to have this difference in damage/healing output. Of course the "easy" jobs should still be able to keep up for savage/ultimate content, but it's fine if they are slightly 'worse' for the sake of comfortableness.

maybe WHM gets less party mitigation BECAUSE they get more 'reactive heals' that just work fine. Mitigation be damned, as long as people don't die, WHM will be outputting massive, MASSIVE healing power if played well, and that's ok.

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Agree with most of this... except having a blast on astro.. at least not in 7.0. Used to be engaging to play but now, while its kit is strong and it has a ton of tools, theres no job mechanic to play for. The job gauge could've been removed completely too and it would've made no difference since there's no decision making surrounding it.
- a disappointed astro

Healer issues aside, there's nothing wrong with the concept of a purely reactive healer. In fact it's arguably what most people would be comfortable with, especially coming from other games where shields/mitigation are a lot less common.

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Originally Posted by Chiru_Kai

WHM is the easy-access class for pure healing. If you want complexity, you go AST and have a blAST.
It's like complaining that SMN doesn't get enough to do more damage compared to BLM. Like... yeah it doesn't get the same level of complexity where you need a 5 page google doc to play it effectively, because it's meant to be the easy access class that is extremely hard to screw up.

Comparing WHM to other healers is silly. Much like comparing SGE to SCH, and then it turns out that SCH has a WAY higher skill expression and powerful abilities to use IF used well. SGE is like the entry-level job for barrier healing. And it's good, but once stuff goes to heck... SGE is not gonne be the healer to save the day because it doesn't get nearly enough flexibility compared to other healers.

It's okay to have this difference in damage/healing output. Of course the "easy" jobs should still be able to keep up for savage/ultimate content, but it's fine if they are slightly 'worse' for the sake of comfortableness.

maybe WHM gets less party mitigation BECAUSE they get more 'reactive heals' that just work fine. Mitigation be damned, as long as people don't die, WHM will be outputting massive, MASSIVE healing power if played well, and that's ok.

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The only skill that WHM has over AST is Cure 3 and that's it. Calling that Massive Healing power is a gross over exaggeration that has gimped WHM for years now and will continue to do so for years to come.

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

The pure/shield healer split is becoming meaningless. They keep adding mitigation to "pure" healers and raw healing to "shield" healers.
This was a half-measure from the start, because they don't enforce pure+shield comps, and want to be flexible so any pair of the four healers ends up in a party for the DF.
It was a failed experiment, at this point I'd prefer if they scraped this concept and had a look at healers as a whole.
But well... *points at healerstrike thread*

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An issue is that most duty finder content can be done with a single healer or even no healer. The presence of 2 healers in tandem with most of the content not hurting enough to warrant that many healers (or tanks even). Structurally, it's to reduce the amount of stress on those 2 support roles by having an extra body to do the other's job which makes sense. Redundancy is good so there's less spiraling wipes, but the tradeoff is feeling like a participant when fights are designed to have instances of damage quite far from each other that most of your kit feels under-utilized. Don't want to dive into the strike, but I think in general the game would benefit from more role responsibility and constant damage, which current fights in DT aside from EX2 are doing really well.

The split is fine IMO. 2x shield in PUGS is a bit anti-synergistic due to how their GCD shields overwrite/don't stack with each other, but feel great in organized settings or with a bit of communication pre-pull. 2x shield is mostly gated by mana if they're required to constantly heal, which low piety BIS sets are often the norm. 2x regen gets pretty dicey/rough in older content like UWU/TEA/DSR/P8S/TOP where mechanics require all shielding/available mitigation where the HP margins you live by are very slim and could result in a wipe if a single CD is missed (standard heavy, mitigation checks which I'm sure you're familiar with but others who haven't done those fights ITT may not be). The split makes more sense there and in general tests how good your shield healer/non-WHM party members are for those checks, while HPS checks are infrequent and should be in more content IMO so the regen healer can shine a bit more. I was simply raising the disparity in WHMs limited role in contributing to the party mit as a regen healer being tied to a single 2 min CD.

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

The pure/shield healer split is becoming meaningless. They keep adding mitigation to "pure" healers and raw healing to "shield" healers.
This was a half-measure from the start, because they don't enforce pure+shield comps, and want to be flexible so any pair of the four healers ends up in a party for the DF.
It was a failed experiment, at this point I'd prefer if they scraped this concept and had a look at healers as a whole.
But well... *points at healerstrike thread*

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Hi, ya there is a lot to complain about. Lack of healing needed in normal content and lack of damage buttons. Both are points we want addressed.

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Originally Posted by bigbooch

An issue is that most duty finder content can be done with a single healer or even no healer. The presence of 2 healers in tandem with most of the content not hurting enough to warrant that many healers (or tanks even). Structurally, it's to reduce the amount of stress on those 2 support roles by having an extra body to do the other's job which makes sense. Redundancy is good so there's less spiraling wipes, but the tradeoff is feeling like a participant when fights are designed to have instances of damage quite far from each other that most of your kit feels under-utilized. Don't want to dive into the strike, but I think in general the game would benefit from more role responsibility and constant damage, which current fights in DT aside from EX2 are doing really well.

The split is fine IMO. 2x shield in PUGS is a bit anti-synergistic due to how their GCD shields overwrite/don't stack with each other, but feel great in organized settings or with a bit of communication pre-pull. 2x shield is mostly gated by mana if they're required to constantly heal, which low piety BIS sets are often the norm. 2x regen gets pretty dicey/rough in older content like UWU/TEA/DSR/P8S/TOP where mechanics require all shielding/available mitigation where the HP margins you live by are very slim and could result in a wipe if a single CD is missed (standard heavy, mitigation checks which I'm sure you're familiar with but others who haven't done those fights ITT may not be). The split makes more sense there and in general tests how good your shield healer/non-WHM party members are for those checks, while HPS checks are infrequent and should be in more content IMO so the regen healer can shine a bit more. I was simply raising the disparity in WHMs limited role in contributing to the party mit as a regen healer being tied to a single 2 min CD.

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As a tank main, I did a lot of content without a healer to prove a point. People still say that isn't a problem when it is.

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Originally Posted by Chiru_Kai

WHM is the easy-access class for pure healing. If you want complexity, you go AST and have a blAST.
It's like complaining that SMN doesn't get enough to do more damage compared to BLM. Like... yeah it doesn't get the same level of complexity where you need a 5 page google doc to play it effectively, because it's meant to be the easy access class that is extremely hard to screw up.

Comparing WHM to other healers is silly. Much like comparing SGE to SCH, and then it turns out that SCH has a WAY higher skill expression and powerful abilities to use IF used well. SGE is like the entry-level job for barrier healing. And it's good, but once stuff goes to heck... SGE is not gonne be the healer to save the day because it doesn't get nearly enough flexibility compared to other healers.

It's okay to have this difference in damage/healing output. Of course the "easy" jobs should still be able to keep up for savage/ultimate content, but it's fine if they are slightly 'worse' for the sake of comfortableness.

maybe WHM gets less party mitigation BECAUSE they get more 'reactive heals' that just work fine. Mitigation be damned, as long as people don't die, WHM will be outputting massive, MASSIVE healing power if played well, and that's ok.

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Difficulty is not what I am discussing, I understand that it is a straight forward job and in theory SE balances jobs partly on difficulty (which is often overstated by SMNs given the higher average and maximum performance of simple jobs like RPR and DNC compared to DRG and BRD; I digress).

Comparing a job to the other jobs within its own role will never be "silly" lol. You're also in the minority if you think SCH is better than SGE in recovery situations. When your co-healer is down and the party needs to have its HP bar topped + shields/mit to live, SGE's Zoe + Pneuma is a pseudo-raidwide benediction and you have several OGCD tools that can heal the party and/or provide shields that dissipate into heals if not maximized while not sacrificing damage or starving for mana like SCH. SCH is better for planned mitigation of big hits and party utility with expedience + chain stratagem.

Maybe you should consider this: with 2 light speed charges every 2min and assuming you have a standard AST 2.34 GCD, you have 12 instant GCDs with 24 weaving windows to use whatever OGCDs to top the party's HP, mitigate, shield and regenerate HP. Most of that is achievable over the span of 1-2 GCDs in even the most chaotic scenarios.

for WHM: with 6 lillies, 2 blood lillies, and 3 glare IVs every 2min, you have 11 instant GCDS to weave...single target heals/shields or plenary indulgence unless you have temperance which I stated earlier in my OP is too infrequent and limiting compared to what's available to AST. Yes it is easy to press plenary + cure 3 or afflatus rapture. It's also easy to double weave and move when you have light speed to fix situations with the plethora of OGCDs you have.

Divine Caress being tied to Temperance is ridiculous. It really should be a separate button that can be used whenever you need it, even if Temperance has been on cooldown for, say, a whole minute.

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Originally Posted by Willemdarke

Healer issues aside, there's nothing wrong with the concept of a purely reactive healer. In fact it's arguably what most people would be comfortable with, especially coming from other games where shields/mitigation are a lot less common.

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2 two things can be true at the same time with my suggestions. WHM can still play mostly reactively to top HP bars while having more damage mitigation tools to contribute to anticipated raidwide damage (i.e. a party shield /mitigation or even a boss debuff like dismantle/reprisal/feint/etc). Since fights are scripted in this game, we can plan ahead by using defensive OGCDs to last just long enough that they cover the damage while also getting their cooldown ticking earlier which can earn us meaningful uses for other boss damage. This is not foreign to other MMOs, let alone XIV which has been kicking for over a decade now.

Note that every healer IS playing reactively, frequently monitoring HP bars. WHM's proactivity is centered around maximizing their lily heals with Plenary, Lily bell, and Temperance so they never have to press a heal that costs mana. But what happens if the boss hits the party with a hit that is so strong that you need every possible shield and % damage reduction to survive? What is the value of your heals there if everyone's HP is 0? That's why I mentioned the high end content settings where healer kits are maximized as opposed to dungeon or trial content that is meant to be cleared by the general player base.

I'm honestly surprised they didn't have something proc off asyluml. WHM needs something extra every 90s IMO, not every 2 mins.

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Originally Posted by CamuiKushi

I'm honestly surprised they didn't have something proc off sacred soil. WHM needs something extra every 90s IMO, not every 2 mins.

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Think you mean Asylum, Sacred Soil is SCH's Bubble.
As for WHM getting some extra, I'd argue they need that much more often than 90s. Every other job has a mitigation effect every 90s at minimal, whereas the other healers have it even more often so limiting WHM to twice every 2 minutes is just asinine, especially after they buffed mitigation effects across the board for every other role.

Bring back Protect as a cooldown :O

Or just like it was whatever. Would it really be op to have it as a passive buff when every other healer has mitigation tools left and right?

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Originally Posted by Tint

Bring back Protect as a cooldown :O

Or just like it was whatever. Would it really be op to have it as a passive buff when every other healer has mitigation tools left and right?

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I’d love to see spells like Protect and Stoneskin come back, but I honestly think theres more chance of winning the lottery than them ever reimplementing support spells of any kind won’t stop me complaining about it though lol

Protect as it was had to be removed (something to do with the defense buff it gave and scaling I think), and the vast majority hated it anyway (‘Why should I have to spend a WHOLE GCD just to cast Protect??!’ ‘I’m being punished for someone else’s death because I had to use a GCD on Protect instead of [FILLER]!’ lol).

If it was a cool-down it’s literally Aquaveil. Maybe they could give Aquaveil two charges?

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Originally Posted by Connor

I’d love to see spells like Protect and Stoneskin come back, but I honestly think theres more chance of winning the lottery than them ever reimplementing support spells of any kind won’t stop me complaining about it though lol

Protect as it was had to be removed (something to do with the defense buff it gave and scaling I think), and the vast majority hated it anyway (‘Why should I have to spend a WHOLE GCD just to cast Protect??!’ ‘I’m being punished for someone else’s death because I had to use a GCD on Protect instead of [FILLER]!’ lol).

If it was a cool-down it’s literally Aquaveil. Maybe they could give Aquaveil two charges?

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They gave machinist Dismantle, a 2min CD boss debuff reducing boss damage right before TOP dropped in 6.3. They previously had this ability on a 1 min CD before removing it back in Stormblood. I'd still take something as simple as that on some interval of time desynced from Temperance.

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Originally Posted by Connor

I’d love to see spells like Protect and Stoneskin come back, but I honestly think theres more chance of winning the lottery than them ever reimplementing support spells of any kind won’t stop me complaining about it though lol

Protect as it was had to be removed (something to do with the defense buff it gave and scaling I think), and the vast majority hated it anyway (‘Why should I have to spend a WHOLE GCD just to cast Protect??!’ ‘I’m being punished for someone else’s death because I had to use a GCD on Protect instead of [FILLER]!’ lol).

If it was a cool-down it’s literally Aquaveil. Maybe they could give Aquaveil two charges?

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They could have just called Aquaveil Protect. They're ditching WHM's elemental roots anyway so why not actually use a spell that exists in other Final Fantasy games?

Disconnecting divine caress from temperance would be a good change but doesn’t really change there is just nothing WHM does better than AST except mana regen which isn’t really a factor anyway

Even if you split the two so you functionally had one mitigation per minute AST still has 1.5 a minute and the ability to shield if it needs, the only advantage on that front is both caress and temperance are a longer duration than CU (though CU also has a regen)

Then outside of mitigation AST is just better in every way, it does more damage, it’s healing is stronger and it can even match cure 3 with neutral sect

AST isn’t so much more complex than WHM anymore that it deserves to be this much stronger than WHM, also remember AST is already ahead with the trash gear we have now, AST and SCH are going to pull even further ahead when we get actually good gear

You know whats also funny when it comes to shield healer? We each steal our shield buffs...i'm healing with a sage colleague in raids and stuff...and its annoying. I can see that there will be balance problems if we could have Shields stacked to infinity...but if youre doing stuff with healers you cant speak to and arrange cds...yeah...say goodbye to efficenty.

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Originally Posted by Lyndina

You know whats also funny when it comes to shield healer? We each steal our shield buffs...i'm healing with a sage colleague in raids and stuff...and its annoying. I can see that there will be balance problems if we could have Shields stacked to infinity...but if youre doing stuff with healers you cant speak to and arrange cds...yeah...say goodbye to efficenty.

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All the healers are very efficient, if not too efficient for the level of raid damage in normal content. Regarding 2x shield in PUGS, it’s pretty straight forward to just stack soil and keracole for mit + regens. You can each kardia/fairy tether separate tanks. Plenty of OGCDS to use and just have the SCH recitation spreadlo in advance of raidwides. Blind prog is one thing, but again shield healers especially ought to learn timelines to maximize their kit, which can often be enough to take care of the raid. Topping off the party is usually covered by soil/kera, whispering dawn/physis, or Sge preferably taking the regen healer responsibilities with Ixichole/pneum/philosophiabeing plenty. It’s less instantaneous as the regen healers sure, but still very doable and effecient.

There needs to be overlap between pure and barrier healers, otherwise you wouldn't be able to clear normal content with only barrier healers. You can't give barrier healers enough healing to be able to do that without also giving pure healers a little bit of mitigation and shielding.

I also don't really think it's a problem for WHM to be more reactive and less proactive than AST. Each job will appeal to some people more than the other.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Disconnecting divine caress from temperance would be a good change but doesn’t really change there is just nothing WHM does better than AST except mana regen which isn’t really a factor anyway

Even if you split the two so you functionally had one mitigation per minute AST still has 1.5 a minute and the ability to shield if it needs, the only advantage on that front is both caress and temperance are a longer duration than CU (though CU also has a regen)

Then outside of mitigation AST is just better in every way, it does more damage, it’s healing is stronger and it can even match cure 3 with neutral sect

AST isn’t so much more complex than WHM anymore that it deserves to be this much stronger than WHM, also remember AST is already ahead with the trash gear we have now, AST and SCH are going to pull even further ahead when we get actually good gear

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The OP discusses a few solutions regarding the opener and presence of mind to fix the damage, which is underdiscussed ITT. I understand some people may want more complex rotations, but I think in the interim these suggested changes would be sufficient to bridge the damage gap currently and any further rotational changes can be done in 7.2/8.0. AST will always have a higher ceiling because of raid buffs and gear scaling, but making that difference at a closer % would be a step in the right direction. If AST has more mit than WHM whatever, I just want the gap in available mitigation per minute to be bridged further so I am not just a spectator during a raidwide cast.

Also doom-posting soliloquies are not really relevant ITT.

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Originally Posted by bigbooch

The OP discusses a few solutions regarding the opener and presence of mind to fix the damage, which is underdiscussed ITT. I understand some people may want more complex rotations, but I think in the interim these suggested changes would be sufficient to bridge the damage gap currently and any further rotational changes can be done in 7.2/8.0. AST will always have a higher ceiling because of raid buffs and gear scaling, but making that difference at a closer % would be a step in the right direction. If AST has more mit than WHM whatever, I just want the gap in available mitigation per minute to be bridged further so I am not just a spectator during a raidwide cast.

Also doom-posting soliloquies are not really relevant ITT.

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Making presence of mind a 1 minute CD would be a buff but I don’t know if it would be enough, AST is already so far ahead with no gear scaling and SCH will pull further away from SGE as we begin to stack crit. It seems to be a fundamental problem of the fact that selfish healers always seem to struggle and they never attempt to bridge the gap

If you want mitigation to be roughly similar divine caress has to lose its connection to temperance. Even then AST is still pretty far ahead especially when you factor in shields, its a problem of the fact WHM has no niche

That “doom posting soliloquy” as you put it is just my signature

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

There needs to be overlap between pure and barrier healers, otherwise you wouldn't be able to clear normal content with only barrier healers. You can't give barrier healers enough healing to be able to do that without also giving pure healers a little bit of mitigation and shielding.

I also don't really think it's a problem for WHM to be more reactive and less proactive than AST. Each job will appeal to some people more than the other.

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It can be less proactive than AST, still play primarily reactive (as all healers will throughout fights, especially with imperfect play of party members), and can feel less helpless in the settings I described in my OP and below.

"The difference in tool kit begins to be apparent in high end content such as savage and ultimate where mitigation (albeit not completely a healer responsibility) is often the bar in which bosses test a group's ability to impact the full party's effective HP stat beyond HP restoration, which WHM is sorely lacking relative to all other healers regardless of Regen/Shield tag." This is what's being missed by many responses; pressing reprisal/feint/addle prior to a raidwide is both expected and not complex. Given the lack of useful party mit OGCDs on WHM, 1 additional button to help with raidwides that isn't a heal is not reinventing the wheel. It's simply bridging the gap btwn regen healer mitigation tools in high end settings where the kits are maximized. Hopefully this elucidates the issue.