Evolved WHM concerns

So in the dev panel they showed Off the new WHM.
And maybe I just missed things, it was pretty early my time.

But did they really take away Dia then declared that making every other glare look different would somehow make spamming the same one Button not monotonous.

Now while they might tune new content to actually make us use GCD heals again to justify the new DMG refund system they introduced, seeing how they phrased it as 'healers had to dps due to dps checks' makes me unsure on that point, because, at least ime, it was more of a 'dps bc there's Nothing else to do for the next minute'

Also, extrapolating from what was just said, not shown, how will AST work with buffs being slashed? And will they fold aetherflow and fairy skills into one on SCH bc they think the differences are less relevant then they sometimes are?

Can't complain about primarily pushing one button if everyone's doing it is the logic I guess.
As for the buffs, I'd assume single target ones like the cards and defensive ones are sticking around.

Evolved Whm made me extremely worried for the rest of the healers not gonna lie. Are all of them gonna see their offensive actions dumbed down? Are they gonna lose the cooldowns that made them unique? Is movement and resource planning gone?

They call it evolved but I dont see any evolution coming from there

Evolved WHM seems to be... okay?

More damage buttons to press, mobility is down "doing DPS", while healing is offset automatically akin to the current lily system. The one big worry is: Will we actually ever need to heal?

If not, then at worst that new system is exactly as bad as the current one. It cannot be worse, so that's a positive element I suppose.
If any actual healing is required (given the massively shrunk healing toolkit it might very well be!) then the new system would be 100% superior.

hope you liked lilies, because you get the same system added a second time.

Blood for the blood lily !
Blood for the the bloody sanctity !

also, it's the only of the 4 jobs Y.P. didn't want to play live XD

Evolve WHM to me seems to take the whole concept behind Afflatus GCD healing <-> Blood lily damage refund and extend it to every healing move or so.
It also gets a pvp combo like other jobs behind one button.

Remains to see how it plays because if just to have fun beyond spamming the attack button when nothing is happening means overhealing people that are already full HP so that we can enjoy the full kit, idk, that sounds awkward.

I think I like the idea behind having to stand still to heal and being able to move freely when just filler-ing damage?

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Originally Posted by Valence

[...]I think I like the idea behind having to stand still to heal and being able to move freely when just filler-ing damage?

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Personally speaking, I think that seems more of an affinity to SGE, while WHM has always been partly spellcaster.

If any, this changes seemed to rhyme with their "everybody must run marathon with their melee brethen!!"-design instead of letting spellcasters be... idk... finding opportunities to sit still & cast spells. To me that's yet another strike to the list of travesties.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Personally speaking, I think that seems more of an affinity to SGE, while WHM has always been partly spellcaster.

If any, this changes seemed to rhyme with their "everybody must run marathon with their melee brethen!!"-design instead of letting spellcasters be... idk... finding opportunities to sit still & cast spells. To me that's yet another strike to the list of travesties.

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Fair enough but I guess they're not willing to change the encounter design direction and if we're gonna get simon says and ddr mechanics, that's around what jobs are going to be designed...

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Originally Posted by Valence

overhealing people that are already full HP so that we can enjoy the full kit, idk, that sounds awkward.

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I'm sure happy they didn't do that like 3 times now ?

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Originally Posted by Valence

Fair enough but I guess they're not willing to change the encounter design direction and if we're gonna get simon says and ddr mechanics, that's around what jobs are going to be designed...

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I can at least acknowledge that there's is always a possibility that they suddenly tone down the ddr and team jump rope aspect, then add more triage and encourage reactivity via more chaotic, less formulaic approach.

But yeah, I know. I'm huffing copium just to say that lmao.

I'm not worried. It does look like the DoT management is gone. But so is the blood lily and Afflatus Misery. Instead **all** GCD heals charge a new sanctity gauge. And that gauge can be spent on a new skill, Holy Sanctuary, that does damage proportional to how full the sanctity gauge is.

Optimizing WHM is now about casting heals with good timing, and *adding* cast bars to skills that didn't have them before. Like Temperance, which needed to be swiftcast. (Also Temperance is now 45s?)

Basically, all attack skills are free and simple. Mental filler. However when you see an enemy cast bar then the skill expression comes in casting the right heal or mit, just in time. Also the panel showed us that overhealing does NOT count.

It looks like Sanctuary can be casted even without any Sanctity (which also doesn't proc if you heal 0 damage) and it looks to be stronger than Glare so you wouldn't want to overcap on it while also being on a 30s recast so that seems to be the replacement for Dia.

Maybe Holy will also be more interesting and/or be a gain in single target with a long cast but they didn't touch that button at all for some reason

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Originally Posted by Catastrophe573

Like Temperance, which needed to be swiftcast. (Also Temperance is now 45s?)

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Sanctuary is what he used swiftcast on

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Originally Posted by Catastrophe573

I'm not worried. It does look like the DoT management is gone. But so is the blood lily and Afflatus Misery. Instead **all** GCD heals charge a new sanctity gauge. And that gauge can be spent on a new skill, Holy Sanctuary, that does damage proportional to how full the sanctity gauge is.

Optimizing WHM is now about casting heals with good timing, and *adding* cast bars to skills that didn't have them before. Like Temperance, which needed to be swiftcast. (Also Temperance is now 45s?)

Basically, all attack skills are free and simple. Mental filler. However when you see an enemy cast bar then the skill expression comes in casting the right heal or mit, just in time. Also the panel showed us that overhealing does NOT count.

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The issue imo come from lack of non healing options and also lack of management in healing options. New whm seem to have up to 4 free GCD heals of which there are now 2 so its effectively afflatus with an extra heal per minute with the difference that afflatus always had a reward while the reward from the heals come from healing hp, so when not damage is coming this system is completely dead and will have you praying everyone gets a bit of damage to be able to overheal and use it.

Not only that but the lack of Dia, afflatus misery, POM and similar cooldowns means that asuming enough damage comes to use those 4 gcd heals, Whm rotation will be 4 GCD heals, 2 Holy Sanctuary and 18 Glares per minute and if not enough damage comes it will be 22 Glares and 2 Holy sanctuary per minute

And this is without taking into consideration the loss of actually cool skills like assize, Asylum or Presence of mind

I actually like the new Evolved Whm. I like that the devs are trying to play to the jobs core niche which is gcd healing. Now ya getting rewarded for it. The damage seems fun too. 1 button but ya always doin’ damage on the move as I think the new encounters will be even more better since the devs can now go all out because the two minute meta will be gone in 8.0. That’s individuality. I believe.

Can’t wait to see Sch and Astro. I’m not much of a sage player but excited to see that too.

I’m patient. Won’t panic. It was an old build and still change allot in almost 9 months. I say don’t stress ya selves :)

8.0 will be basically a way to play the game. It’s gonna be scary for all of us but I’m sure in the end it will all be okay.

My actual WHM concern btw? They deleted Cure 1, Cure 2, and Cure 3.

• Cure 1 should have always upgraded into Cure 2.
• With changes to Medica 3 and Afflatus Rapture I could live without Cure 3.
• Cure 2 is still there, just renamed to "High Cure". (It's even using Cure 2's icon as a placeholder.)

But imagine if BLM lost the iconic Fire 1/2/3/4? Right?

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

The issue imo come from lack of non healing options and also lack of management in healing options. New whm seem to have up to 4 free GCD heals of which there are now 2 so its effectively afflatus with an extra heal per minute with the difference that afflatus always had a reward while the reward from the heals come from healing hp, so when not damage is coming this system is completely dead and will have you praying everyone gets a bit of damage to be able to overheal and use it.

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Well again, overhealing seems to do nothing for the sanctity gauge. But what you're describing seems to be how I feel during expert roulettes and certain extremes like Arkveld. If everyone plays their jobs correctly, tanks mit, and especially if we have a MCH throwing out Tactician at random - then yeah I do nothing but spam Glare. I would like Evolved Mode to solve that problem with WHM, but I don't think that's what this change is for. Evolved Mode is about asking what puzzles are we solving with three different GCD AOE heals? And could we solve them with two?

It has always been a problem where WHM is only fun in savage, quantum, Valigarmanda EX, and "dungeons when my party screws up a lot". I would like that fixed, but that requires a change to encounter design or balance. Cutting or combining skills really isn't related.

I am also worried that when everything goes well, then all the healing part of the kit remains unused or useless, and we're back to what we have today. But that is if we base ourselves on the EW/DT model, and I do feel this truly hinges on what they actually intend for tanks to be like in EC: true godtier self healing party mitigation machines that in all but name replace healers in most non savage+ content, or something else after seriously reviewing the role and its boundaries?

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Originally Posted by Catastrophe573

My actual WHM concern btw? They deleted Cure 1, Cure 2, and Cure 3.

• Cure 1 should have always upgraded into Cure 2.
• With changes to Medica 3 and Afflatus Rapture I could live without Cure 3.
• Cure 2 is still there, just renamed to "High Cure". (It's even using Cure 2's icon as a placeholder.)

Well again, overhealing seems to do nothing for the sanctity gauge. But what you're describing seems to be how I feel during expert roulettes and certain extremes like Arkveld. If everyone plays their jobs correctly, tanks mit, and especially if we have a MCH throwing out Tactician at random - then yeah I do nothing but spam Glare. I would like Evolved Mode to solve that problem with WHM, but I don't think that's what this change is for. Evolved Mode is about asking what puzzles are we solving with three different GCD AOE heals? And could we solve them with two?

It has always been a problem where WHM is only fun in savage, quantum, Valigarmanda EX, and "dungeons when my party screws up a lot". I would like that fixed, but that requires a change to encounter design or balance. Cutting or combining skills really isn't related.

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With overhealing I meant healing things like a dps at 90% hp just to get the sanctity charge if its the dps optimal solution, the sanctity seems to be procced if it heals something, which may still lead to overheal just that instead of 100% of the heal being lost now it would be 90%-99%

I feel the removal of damagin options and cooldown hurt more than help WHM, assize POM or thin air were great tools that seem to be gone and this iteration seems to be even more 1 button spammy than Dawntrail's

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

I actually like the new Evolved Whm. I like that the devs are trying to play to the jobs core niche which is gcd healing. Now ya getting rewarded for it. The damage seems fun too. 1 button but ya always doin’ damage on the move as I think the new encounters will be even more better since the devs can now go all out because the two minute meta will be gone in 8.0. That’s individuality. I believe.

Can’t wait to see Sch and Astro. I’m not much of a sage player but excited to see that too.

I’m patient. Won’t panic. It was an old build and still change allot in almost 9 months. I say don’t stress ya selves :)

8.0 will be basically a way to play the game. It’s gonna be scary for all of us but I’m sure in the end it will all be okay.

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Leaning into the identity of GCD healing shouldn’t mean “there is no downside to ever GCD healing, throw out what you want”

Being refunded for literally everything just encourages you to do whatever you want with no downsides, it doesn’t really give you an identity

Hello everyone,

I’d like to share an infographic I found on Reddit about the Evolved White Mage. Some of you may have already seen it, but I thought it could be a good starting point for discussion here.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...1823db165e519&
Found: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._evolved_jobs/ (to Zoom)

My first impression is that the White Mage looks very strong with these changes.

Even with the DoT being removed, it feels like that loss is easily compensated by the double combo system and the new interaction where healing actively improves your burst. The focus seems to shift from “pressing a debuff every 30 seconds” to “how do I heal efficiently to maximize my damage output?”

I actually find that core idea pretty interesting.

That said, how this really plays out in practice is something we’ll have to test ourselves. There’s no way around that.

What immediately stood out to me (and honestly worries me a bit) is that there don’t seem to be any role actions shown anymore.

That raises a pretty important question for me:
What’s happening to our mana regeneration (MP management)?

For White Mage, managing MP has always been a core part of the gameplay—not just healing, but also keeping an eye on your resources. If that’s being removed or significantly changed, it could really impact how the job feels overall.

What do you think?
Am I missing something, or does this concern you as well?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts

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Originally Posted by Heilstos

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The double combo (Glare -> Legally distinct Glare but exactly the same) is a nothing burger meant to distract the most casual players and the holy sanctuary is basically afflatus lite, a small mathing of the rotation can really show how with these changes WHM would be pressing glare for an amount between 75% and 91% of the total GCDs, its even worse than current WHM.

The whole using GCDs efficiently already existed in the afflatus heals (ffs the new GCDs even transform into afflatus heals) but they just rebranded it and made it seem new when in reality it isnt while killing way more interesting buttons like assize, PoM, Asylum etc. Overall the kit is very dumbed down, oversimplified and solves absolutely none of the problems current WHM has

The removal of “Presence of Mind” (at least in its current form) isn’t just a random change, but part of a broader design shift.

From what we’re seeing, Square Enix seems to be moving away from the rigid two-minute burst meta. A lot of jobs have been built around syncing everything into these 120-second windows, and now that structure is being loosened or even broken up entirely.

Because of that, it makes sense that:

Two-minute-aligned skills are being reworked or removed
Raid buffs tied to that timing are disappearing or changing
And yes, this also affects White Mage losing that kind of raid-buff identity in this context

So “Presence of Mind” going away (or being heavily changed) isn’t really a standalone change. It’s more a symptom of the overall system redesign ("In times the Boss must stand still every 2 mins"). The goal seems to be shifting gameplay away from strict burst windows toward something more flexible and reactive.

The same core idea already existed with Afflatus Misery. In practice, it was mostly used to line up with those two-minute burst windows, which again ties back into the old meta design.
The important part, though, is that the core identity of the Lily system hasn’t changed: healing translates into damage. That fundamental loop is still there.
So if Afflatus Misery is being removed, it doesn’t really feel like a loss of identity to me. Instead, it looks like another step away from forcing everything into those strict two-minute windows. And honestly, that might be a good thing.

Right now, we also don’t know the actual potency values of the new White Mage damage kit, so it’s too early to judge the real impact. Until we see numbers and play it ourselves, any final evaluation would just be speculation. (Media tour in December going to show us more.)

The new direction for the Afflatus kit is actually pretty interesting. With every use from an Afflatus heals now providing an additional healing amplification effect (for 5 secs -maybe to less for player not planning around. 10 secs could be better), it feels like the original purpose behind Asylum hasn’t really disappeared. It’s just been redistributed in the lilis.
Instead of placing a static ground field for healing buffs, that “healing boost identity” is now tied directly to your GCD actions. In a way, this keeps the spirit of Asylum alive, but makes it far more dynamic and player-driven.
On top of that, since GCD healing naturally feeds back into damage through the Lily system, it creates a much smoother loop: healing decisions directly contribute to your DPS optimization. That basically feels like a fusion of the Lily system and Asylum’s old role.
Personally, I think this is actually more flexible than dropping a fixed field every 90 secs. It gives you more control over when and how you provide value, instead of being locked into a predefined window.

The problem I have with those changes are actually the cd on holy sanctuary. Those changes are supposed to let white mage heal "as much as they want" without losing dps. But since holy sanctuary has a 30 seconds CD, then it means that white mage can't use more than 3 heals every 30 seconds without losing dps... This feels nonsensical. I feel like holy sanctuary should not have a CD but should be usable only with at least 1 stack of sanctity. That way, every 3 heals, you are "forced" to cast holy sanctuary in order to gain the right to use other heals without losing dps. But right now, you are forced to not use more than 3 heals every 30 seconds or else you will lose dps. That's weird.

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Originally Posted by Heilstos

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PoM existed way before the 2m meta so its removal was unnecesary, afflatus missery too, it was 1m cycle which is the exact same cycle whm is operating in the dev build (3x 20s lillies, 2x 30s sanctitity, 60s temperance...), most of the skills they removed were unnecesary to remove the 2m meta and in fact Whm didn't need to lose anything because being a selfish job it did not have buffs that played into that meta and could operate as its own thing.

Afflatus missery was never part of 2m meta in its conception, it was a refund mechanic to allow Whm GCD healing which, fun fact, is the exact same as sanctity, they literlaly stripped Whm bare and as new mechanics they are giving back a reskin of already existing ones but watered down.


We absolute SHOULD NOT wait until December to voice our concers, by that moment the changes are already done and the game is too late to be fixed it is RN when we should call out the devs for the absolute mess that evolved Whm is

POM has existed since literally ARR and it used to be used to pump out GCD healing faster when you really needed it

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Leaning into the identity of GCD healing shouldn’t mean “there is no downside to ever GCD healing, throw out what you want”

Being refunded for literally everything just encourages you to do whatever you want with no downsides, it doesn’t really give you an identity

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Agreed but apparently it doesn't refund anything if you overheal so there is definitely a consideration if you want to optimize your healing, then overhealing is literally kneecapping your DPS.

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Originally Posted by Karuya

The problem I have with those changes are actually the cd on holy sanctuary. Those changes are supposed to let white mage heal "as much as they want" without losing dps. But since holy sanctuary has a 30 seconds CD, then it means that white mage can't use more than 3 heals every 30 seconds without losing dps... This feels nonsensical. I feel like holy sanctuary should not have a CD but should be usable only with at least 1 stack of sanctity. That way, every 3 heals, you are "forced" to cast holy sanctuary in order to gain the right to use other heals without losing dps. But right now, you are forced to not use more than 3 heals every 30 seconds or else you will lose dps. That's weird.

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That could be a Problem, by tanks who don't use CDs true. Good point Karuya

One possible way to handle this could be making Glare (or a higher-tier Glare) instant and then pairing it with Tetragrammaton. That would let you weave it comfortably within a single GCD.

Just a rough idea on how this issue could be approached.

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

PoM existed way before the 2m meta so its removal was unnecesary, afflatus missery too, it was 1m cycle which is the exact same cycle whm is operating in the dev build (3x 20s lillies, 2x 30s sanctitity, 60s temperance...), most of the skills they removed were unnecesary to remove the 2m meta and in fact Whm didn't need to lose anything because being a selfish job it did not have buffs that played into that meta and could operate as its own thing.

Afflatus missery was never part of 2m meta in its conception, it was a refund mechanic to allow Whm GCD healing which, fun fact, is the exact same as sanctity, they literlaly stripped Whm bare and as new mechanics they are giving back a reskin of already existing ones but watered down.


We absolute SHOULD NOT wait until December to voice our concers, by that moment the changes are already done and the game is too late to be fixed it is RN when we should call out the devs for the absolute mess that evolved Whm is

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I do understand the frustration here. It never feels good when familiar skills get removed, especially ones that have been part of a job’s identity for a long time. There’s a certain comfort and mastery tied to those abilities, so losing them can feel like the job is being stripped down.
At the same time, I think this is part of a broader direction the devs are taking. With so many jobs in the game now, it seems like they’re trying to sharpen identities and reduce overlap, so that each job feels more distinct rather than everyone having a bit of everything. That kind of restructuring will naturally mean that some skills fall away or get folded into other systems.
I also wouldn’t judge the impact too early. We don’t have final potency numbers yet, and overall balance isn’t just about individual skills. It’s also about encounter design and how damage and healing expectations are tuned. Losing a button doesn’t automatically mean losing effectiveness if that power is redistributed elsewhere.
So while I get why it feels rough right now, I think it’s worth seeing how the full kit plays in practice before calling it a complete loss.

We should be fair as community to give Mr. Prime (aka Mr. Tamaki) the time he needs to cook something good.

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Originally Posted by Heilstos

I do understand the frustration here. It never feels good when familiar skills get removed, especially ones that have been part of a job’s identity for a long time. There’s a certain comfort and mastery tied to those abilities, so losing them can feel like the job is being stripped down.
At the same time, I think this is part of a broader direction the devs are taking. With so many jobs in the game now, it seems like they’re trying to sharpen identities and reduce overlap, so that each job feels more distinct rather than everyone having a bit of everything. That kind of restructuring will naturally mean that some skills fall away or get folded into other systems

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They are not doing that with Whm? Literally it has the same identity of healing with GCDs as the Reborn one but somehow even simpler and more monotone?

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I also wouldn’t judge the impact too early. We don’t have final potency numbers yet, and overall balance isn’t just about individual skills. It’s also about encounter design and how damage and healing expectations are tuned. Losing a button doesn’t automatically mean losing effectiveness if that power is redistributed elsewhere.

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I dont need the potency numbers to know that the playstyle is going to be oversimplified, is as simple as:

A) Fully charged sanctity is a gain: Then we spam glare 18/24 gcds per minute, 4 go to gcd heals and 2 to sanctity: 75% glarespam
B) Fully charged sanctitiy is not a gain: Then we spam glare 22/24, 2 to Sacntity: 91% glarespam

They are not going to change content design because reborn is still there, old content is still there. We have been fed the same lie for 7 years already.

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So while I get why it feels rough right now, I think it’s worth seeing how the full kit plays in practice before calling it a complete loss.

We should be fair as community to give Mr. Prime (aka Mr. Tamaki) the time he needs to cook something good.

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We should tell Mr.Prime RN what works and doesnt before he burns the whole kitchen, when the dish is ready to be served the damage is already done, is during the cooking that fixes can be made

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

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I get what you’re saying, and I think that’s a fair concern, especially when it comes to gameplay depth and not just numbers.

At the same time, I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to say nothing has changed in terms of identity. The shift seems to be more about how you reach your damage output rather than how often you press Glare. The idea that healing decisions feed more directly into your damage still seems to be there, just structured differently than before.
Also, even if the loop looks simpler on paper, that doesn’t always translate 1:1 into how it feels in actual encounters. A lot depends on how often you’re required to heal, how fights are paced, and how those tools interact under pressure.

I do agree though that feedback shouldn’t wait until everything is finalized, early impressions are important. I just think there’s a difference between calling out concerns and already concluding that the job is fundamentally broken before we’ve had a chance to play it in real scenarios.
So yeah, I’d say: raise concerns now, absolutely, but maybe keep some room open for how it actually plays out in practice.

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Originally Posted by Heilstos

That could be a Problem, by tanks who don't use CDs true. Good point Karuya

One possible way to handle this could be making Glare (or a higher-tier Glare) instant and then pairing it with Tetragrammaton. That would let you weave it comfortably within a single GCD.

Just a rough idea on how this issue could be approached.

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I'm not only talking about that, it's more like a "philosophy" problem. I'm talking about, if you have to heal your team more than 3 times with medica because there are a lot of aoe damages(or if you just want to do it for no reason because you want to waste your mana), then it means you will lose dps because sanctuary has a 30 seconds cd, so you won't have enough sanctuary to consume every sanctity stack you get.

This doesn't fit the "we want people to be free to heal just like they want" mentality that YoshiP and M.Prime talked about. In my opinion, the only limit you should have in regard to the amount of healing you chose to use should not be your sanctuary cd, it should be your mana, so yeah i think sanctuary should not have a cd, if a situation requires to use more than 3 heals in 30 seconds, you should be able to do : medica * 3 -> sanctuary -> medica * 3 -> sanctuary ... I'm of course using an extreme example and i don't think we should ever need to cast 6 medica, but we should be free to do so if we want, if we follow the mentality devs talked about.

Rather, doesn't the 30s cooldown tell us that they're intending content to 'need' only three heals maximum in a 30s window? Not exactly encouraging when read that way.

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Originally Posted by Alice_Rivers

Rather, doesn't the 30s cooldown tell us that they're intending content to 'need' only three heals maximum in a 30s window? Not exactly encouraging when read that way.

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I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. They have historically added new toys to healer kits designed to tackle certain mechanics such as adding Panhaima & Lilybell on the same expansion they start using more multi-hitting raidwides/stack markers, when it’s already perfectly doable without those additions.

In the end, them saying “we will give healers more healing to do” but also giving us the very tools to make it easier or outright delete said mechanics pretty much defeats the purpose.

technically they could not give you any healing to do for 30s and then throw a section that requires up to 6 heals in the next 30s, not that that's really different from the current scheduled heal checks.

Although, since moves like DRG's Skyhigh exists we may end up seeing more moments where specific jobs will take avoidable damage to do more dps? If some jobs could cheese parts of mechanics for more uptime and make damage taken less consistent, that could potentially mix things up.

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

Although, since moves like DRG's Skyhigh exists we may end up seeing more moments where specific jobs will take avoidable damage to do more dps? If some jobs could cheese parts of mechanics for more uptime and make damage taken less consistent, that could potentially mix things up.

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This part is a bit unlikely since SE started giving damage downs from taking avoidable damage from mechanics, especially in the highest end where the damage downs are so severe that death is preferable

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

This part is a bit unlikely since SE started giving damage downs from taking avoidable damage from mechanics, especially in the highest end where the damage downs are so severe that death is preferable

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yeah... their track record certainly hasn't been great. They're more likely to gut those options than lean into it, especially if they get complaints from healers losing their personal dps for it or healers refusing to adjust for stuff like that.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

Evolved WHM seems to be... okay?

More damage buttons to press, mobility is down "doing DPS", while healing is offset automatically akin to the current lily system. The one big worry is: Will we actually ever need to heal?

If not, then at worst that new system is exactly as bad as the current one. It cannot be worse, so that's a positive element I suppose.
If any actual healing is required (given the massively shrunk healing toolkit it might very well be!) then the new system would be 100% superior.

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I'm curious how Evolved WHM has more damage buttons to press. Current WHM has Glare 3, Dia, Holy 3, Misery, Assize and PoM/Glare 4. Meanwhile, Evolved WHM seemingly only has Glare/High Glare, Holy and Holy Judgment. So it went from 6 currently, to 3 with Evolved.

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Originally Posted by Sarantserel

I'm curious how Evolved WHM has more damage buttons to press. Current WHM has Glare 3, Dia, Holy 3, Misery, Assize and PoM/Glare 4. Meanwhile, Evolved WHM seemingly only has Glare/High Glare, Holy and Holy Judgment. So it went from 6 currently, to 3 with Evolved.

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From the perspective of “non glare GCD’s that contribute to damage” WHM currently has 15 per 2 minutes (6 blue lilies 2 red lilies 4 dia’s, 3 glare 4’s). new WHM would have 16 (12 casts of a GCD that give a sanctity stack and 4 casts of sanctuary)

So it’s a very slight increase to GCD’s not related to glare with an increase in the freedom of where they can be placed but in exchange you get a reduction in oGCD damage through POM and assize being deleted

The issue is that like all jobs, current WHM litters it's hotbar with damage buttons you press once in a blue moon. There's no reason to do that. And yeah sorry I typed the above on a phone ("done" autocorrected to "down" >.>) and did not explain it well.

The new WHM shown puts the focus where it should be. Damage is all done without a castbar. Healing uses a castbar. This automatically "focuses" the feel on healing, that's the actual thing you do. Even if healing is never asked for much, that conceptually anchors the design. I was in favor of making all damage oGCD with a 2.5s CD, sadly they didn't do that but hey, all instant GCDs works in a pinch I suppose. I am kinda sad DoTs are gone but since DoT was just the same across all 4 healers it also offered nothing. It wasn't like one healer had only DoTs for dealing damage while the other 3 healers had no DoTS (that'd be cool, don't get me wrong, I'd love that!). So now we have a bigger focus on doing damage on the GCDs we do damage with - it's not watered down by being spread over way too many buttons all just doing damage.

Am I sad the blood lily is gone? Yes. That's a renaming absolutely unnecessary, I can only imagine this is needed for technical reasons as old-mode will stick around at least for the 9.x-expansion time.

I think the problem comes in that in order to have a greater focus on healing there has to be an actual reason to heal which as we know this game has long struggled with.

They seem to be trying to counter this by removing oGCD’s so if you say need an AOE GCD heal then medica is basically your only option which feeds back into the system but that’s still built on the assumption that you will be required to heal. Because now only healing has casts, so if all you are doing is healing just to occasionally fix chip damage to get sanctity stacks then instant casts glares will get very boring very quickly

That's still a change I like I should add. I find oGCD-weaving as a concept outdated given my trajectory of MMORPGs (M59->EQ1->DAoC->WoW->GW2->FF14), but not allowing important functionality via oGCDs is to me important. Actually short-term reactionary abilities ought to be instant (in the GW2 sense, they can be used even mid-animation-lock basically), but with the exception of that the less is oGCD the better. Of course, at some point I hope they just remove ~all oGCDs and then shorten the GCD timer to 1.5s or so at most, and cut all potencies and durations according to the new output (10 abilites over 15s instead of 6).

But yeah a lot hinges on whether they'll actually increase healing required. Not just with now-GCDs-formerly-oGCDs, but importantly actual healing requirements. In theory they easily could: Increase raw HP massively, but remove most passive damage reduction even more tanks (instead they have significantly more HP). They'd still die slowly from chip damage, but now there's actual effort in re-healing the HP lost (compare old vanilla or TBC era WoW Druid tanks which were massive HP sponges as tanks). Not perfect, but a relatively simple solution if wanted.