Consolidated White Mage 4.0 Feedback Thread

[javid]

Here's to hoping there are more fundamental changes to WHM's kit, because a 100% chance of Cure II proccing a Lily isn't going to change the fact that CD Reduction is worthless. I'm baffled that they would make a whole system for WHM that is essentially a weaker and more restricted Spear card when no one uses Spear Card as is.

exaggeration. a 20% reduction on assize account for a 25% dps increase, no i'm not saying spam unnecessary GCDs to get that 20% recast reduction, but if the mech of the fight demand the amount of cures that can guarantee 3 lilies b4 assize; those 25% dps increase will add up.... far from useless.

[BroodingFicus]

exaggeration. a 20% reduction on assize account for a 25% dps increase, no i'm not saying spam unnecessary GCDs to get that 20% recast reduction, but if the mech of the fight demand the amount of cures that can guarantee 3 lilies b4 assize; those 25% dps increase will add up.... far from useless.

It think the useless comes into play when you consider that Assize, Benediction, Tetra etc are all abilities that you can't/shouldn't be planning to burn at set intervals. I'm not usually going to use assize unless there is a large amount of trash, I need mana, or a quick aoe heal. Preferably two of the three. Bene is usually my 'oh god he's going to die' button and I usually use tetra when the tank still needs my attention but maybe a dps just stepped in something so I'll throw it out to keep from losing too much time on the tank. It's all very situational and so yes, sometimes that cooldown reduction might come in handy but other times I'm going to have to burn my lilies early because as much as I might want to wait to use it on Assize when I have three, using benediction to keep the tank alive is more important even if I only have one Lily. The benefit is too spotty and connected to too many situational cooldowns. It would be far better and more consistent if we could at least pick when to use it or it provided a long standing buff to MND etc so long as lilies were active and we had other more impactful moves we could burn them on at a time of our choosing. As it stands, there will be a lot of instances where a good WHM should ignore lilies in favor of using cooldowns when they are needed.

[Cupcakesu]

exaggeration. a 20% reduction on assize account for a 25% dps increase, no i'm not saying spam unnecessary GCDs to get that 20% recast reduction, but if the mech of the fight demand the amount of cures that can guarantee 3 lilies b4 assize; those 25% dps increase will add up.... far from useless.

I said it's a weaker and more restricted Spear card. You call it an exaggeration. Let's take a look at the stats:

Spear: Reduces target's action recast time (non-GCD) by 20%. Duration: 20s
Lily System: Reduces recast time by 20% at 3 Lilies. No duration, works for only one cast, and as you said is only applicable in rare rights that demand many Cures. Also requires you never use Divine Benison, which also uses Lilies.

So Spear can be enhanced up to 30%, and works for multiple casts throughout the duration. Lilies give us 20% off recast of ONE skill once we've accumulated three Lilies on rare occasions.
Where is the exaggeration again? Lilies are a more restricted Spear. And no one likes Spear.

[Feidam]

I said it's a weaker and more restricted Spear card. You call it an exaggeration. Let's take a look at the stats:

snip

No one likes spear because only abilities used under the effects of spear have shortened cool-downs and it is a nightmare to coordinate. Otherwise situationally spear could very powerful. The lily mechanic's effect is stronger than spear as it allows the whm the ability to dictate when used. It will also provided reliable cooldown reduction through an entire fight if nothing changes further. The ability for cure 2 to proc a lily 100% has helped see to that. This of course is not a statement on efficiency of casting cure 2 or whether the mechanic is interesting.

[Cupcakesu]

No one likes spear because only abilities used under the effects of spear have shortened cool-downs and it is a nightmare to coordinate. Otherwise situationally spear could very powerful. The lily mechanic's effect is stronger than spear as it allows the whm the ability to dictate when used. It will also provided reliable cooldown reduction through an entire fight if nothing changes further. The ability for cure 2 to proc a lily 100% has helped see to that. This of course is not a statement on efficiency of casting cure 2 or whether the mechanic is interesting.

Except it doesn't really allow the WHM the ability to dictate when used, because it requires you use none of your oGCD skills if you want to accumulate Lilies. Every cast of a skill that can be reduced will immediately consume all Lilies in your possession. This is true also for the new shield spell. They both have the same fundamental design issue in that you can't plan around it because they're too limiting if you try to. Further, oGCDs will often have set times you want to use them. Reducing their CD isn't going to help most of the time, making CD Reduction overall an undesirable or useless mechanic in many cases.

CD Reduction could make for a reasonable supplementary addition, but the Lily system really needs something else to make it stand out and useful. As it is now, it hits the same issues that make Spear fodder.

[Feidam]

Except it doesn't allow the WHM the ability to dictate when used, because unlike Spear it requires you use none of your oGCD skills if you want to accumulate Lilies. They both have the same fundamental design issue in that you can't plan around it, and they're too limiting if you try to. They're both nightmares to coordinate. Reducing their CD isn't going to help most of the time.

It is only limiting to those that will refuse to use the lily building skills. Furthermore you get to choose at which level you burn the lilies, one up to three. And people will be and already are burning assize on cooldown so it will make assize that much stronger through even more use. That's not even considering the other abilities that can utilize the lilies. Lily is actually quite easy to coordinate. The fact is people just can't stand the though they will have to cast a cure. Never mind they have no clue what kind of healing demands will be present.

[Cupcakesu]

It is only limiting to those that will refuse to use the lily building skills. Furthermore you get to choose at which level you burn the lilies, one up to three. And people will be and already are burning assize on cooldown so it will make assize that much stronger through even more use. That's not even considering the other abilities that can utilize the lilies. Lily is actually quite easy to coordinate. The fact is people just can't stand the though they will have to cast a cure. Never mind they have no clue what kind of healing demands will be present.

I repeatedly edited my post, so sorry if you caught it early after I initially posted it.

Anyway, you could arguably use it to spam Assize as much as possible, but building Lilies would still require you avoid using all of your other oGCD skills unless you're spamming Cure consistently between them. If skills used up one Lily it might be more manageable, but as it is right now all Lilies disappear the moment you use anything, and Lilies 1-2 give negligible (4-10%) CD reductions so that you may not even get to use the skill one more time than usual in an entire fight. If the entire mechanic in a fight results in one extra Assize, is it really a good/worthwhile system?

[Feidam]

If the entire mechanic in a fight results in one extra Assize, is it really a good/worthwhile system?

If you recall I specially pointed out that it was a look at the two effects, not a judgement on if I thought the system was worthwhile. But since you asked, with how it was based on the San Fran media tour I didn't like it , but could see potential with some changes. Now we know some whm changes have occurred just not what they all are so I'm reserving judgment.

[CaeliaCat]

Just leaving more feedback..

As others have pointed out, an increased proc rate from Cure II on lilies is nice, but ultimately does not address the disparity between WHM and AST/SCH.

My preference would be that WHM gets a comparable ability to Spread Arrow / Spread Balance / Change Stragem. Why doesn't WHM have Haste? or Reflect (to a limit)? Both AST and SCH bring so much utility and party wide damage support that if SE wants to stick a pure healer role and refrain from giving WHM any utility whatsoever, they really need to buff WHM healing output so that it is undeniably superior to AST/SCH.

If WHM is really going to be relegated to a pure healing role, what about:

Lilies build on cure, cure II, regen, medica, medica II at various proc rates (lower on HoTs). Lilies provide an innate spell speed increase while they are active. WHM can expend ONE lily for Divine Benison. Lilies DO NOT go away on Assize, Asylum, or Tetra. Those oGCD heals are already on short cooldowns, we don't need to make them shorter through RNG. Giving WHM a spellspeed increase AND better / more frequent shields would make the "pure healer" WHM a step above the competitors, but still lack party utility. One small 15% shield that uses all lilies is an awful ability, and 10% stoneskin would likely be better.

As for confession stacks and plenary indulgence, the timer needs to be at least 1 minute if the objective is to be able to heal, say, two tanks during an add phase.