Should Divine Benison be improved?

[Joe777]

I mean, isn't a single target lily burning 30s cooldown Damage Shield ability a bit lacking compared to the other healers? Why not make it like this instead:

1 Lily: Works exactly as it does now.
2 Lilies: Cooldown is reduced by 10s.
3 Lilies: Cooldown is increased by 10s and has an AoE effect 20y around the target.

Divine Benison will also stack with other Damage Shields.

Edit: Was not aware Divine Benison got reduced cooldown from lily stacks. Could've sworn it didn't before...

[Kabzy]

It's fine as it is. Though it may be miniscule, it does add a CD reduction based on the number of Lillies you use up like all the other abilities.

Making it AoE is a no no. WHM is not a shielder and actually it wouldn't synergise well with its co-healer. Shields don't stack, and a WHM using an AoE shield would be useless unless they were paired with a D.AST, which generally never happens.

[Sebazy]

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but Benison is the only oGCD barrier in the game? It’s also pretty powerful on a tank, it’s also unique in being percentage based rather than reliant on actually healing (which makes it quite potent the moment infirmity style debuffs come into play).

So lilys aside, I think it’s actually pretty decent.

The only issue I have with it is it requiring lilys to actually use. There’s nothing more annoying than having to waste GCDs to have it ready for stuff like Tera slash or O4s in general, whilst there’s always that risk of firing off Assize on CD or a clutch Tetra only to shoot yourself in the foot and be left unable to Benison in time. Kind of limits how dependable it is =\

[Tridus]

The ability itself is pretty good, I think, as it fills in a gap without overly stepping on the toes of the other healers, and that it's oGCD makes it pretty unique. It's the requirement for a lily that hinders it when no other skill has one, as that gets you stuck in situations where you either can't use your other lily consuming skills without locking out DB, have to cast a largely pointless cure to be able to use DB, or can't use DB because you just also used Tetra/Assize.

The only adjustment I'd want to see, really, is making it work like every other skill that uses lilies and work without one, but at full cooldown.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Like others have said before, the ability itself is great. The requirement of at least one Lily is not.

And be careful what you ask for, because the second lilies supercharge most of your spells if you have 3, you're going to feel the need to waste 3 GCD on heals you probably don't need in order to get that supercharged effect.

I do think Lilies are stupidly underwhelming (lower CD is about as boring as you can get for a special ability), but I'd prefer them to not make an even worse decision and make us heal 3 full times before getting our full effects.

[Raminax]

I like Divine Benison. I would've liked it even more if it didn't require a Lily to cast, which is about the only change I can think about to not make it broken.

Either that or let lilies be generated through casting Stone so that DB is more reliably available, but that's a discussion for another time, seeing as it would've affected more than just Benison.

[Erakir]

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but Benison is the only oGCD barrier in the game? It’s also pretty powerful on a tank, it’s also unique in being percentage based rather than reliant on actually healing (which makes it quite potent the moment infirmity style debuffs come into play).

So lilys aside, I think it’s actually pretty decent.

The only issue I have with it is it requiring lilys to actually use. There’s nothing more annoying than having to waste GCDs to have it ready for stuff like Tera slash or O4s in general, whilst there’s always that risk of firing off Assize on CD or a clutch Tetra only to shoot yourself in the foot and be left unable to Benison in time. Kind of limits how dependable it is =\

It's a travesty to me that as usable as Benison is, I hear people use it less and less in fights as they get better simply because lily generation plummets as you cast fewer cures. I *want* to use Benison - Casting cure 2 and following up with benison is like a guaranteed crit every 30s with the crit portion not overhealing. Something that you -should- feel efficient using, a free-mini-boost. And yet here we are - It feels bad to pass it over cause the GCD to generate the lily becomes less and less worth it (Not to mention, a risk if your cohealer tops off the person while you're casting and you get no lily at all). And like yourself, the times I've had to suddenly tetra and lose the shield I had planned on using in 3s just sucks.

During HW I was a big proponent of some sort of synergy with DPS, things like allowing stone casts to stack or proc MP reduction of stoneskins, helping offset the harsh MP costs and letting you stay in Cleric's longer to avoid triggering the 5s lockout again (And shields happen to play oh so nicely with HoTs if a person isn't topped off when the shield is applied, almost like we could regen a tank and buffer them with small shields or something to make tank health stable and less ping-pongy). Heaven forbid we got to make better use of that "lovely" 0.5s cast time reduction trait. One could do similar things with the aero line tied to regen, or any number of spells, but that basic point remains. It's important to not make it ~more~ healing than not DPSing, but more of a little bonus that you can weave back into healing related mechanics.

It should come as no surprise that I'm sad we can't generate lilies with DPS as well. If they put, say, that 20% chance back on stone casts, suddenly it's gonna start popping up more often. Heck, if you gained one every 5 casts of stone - would it be a real problem if a WHM was generating 3 lilies every 30-40s or so doing nothing but DPS, given the whoop-de-do nature of the CD reductions as it is? I'd say probably not.

Food for thought - as meh as CD reduction is for the other skills, I'd consider that benison *might* benefit the most from it, despite the reduction being so small. This is specifically because other abilities are often planned for mechanics, and while I've planned benison a fair bit, too, its lily requirement leads to it being phased out, making it more usable as a 'whenever feels decent' skill. However, it also means generating more lilies to constantly use, which decrease as fight experience goes on, so you probably won't really capitalize much on 24s Benison vs 30s. Tetra is the other ability I feel benefits the most from CDR for its reactionary nature.

As for the OP - Honestly if I had to address any of our abilities, Asylum would be the first one I look at before Benison. And that's after doing something with that garbage Secrets of the Lily II trait.

Also, Kabzy, I want to say Benison stacks with SCH/AST shields. The tooltips for the latter specifically state not stacking with Adlo (for AST) and Nocturnal stance (for SCH). I haven't tested it in a long time but I could have sworn I looked at it early into the expansion and saw they stacked. Stoneskin always stacked with AST/SCH shields too, which is why we'd spend 8 GCDs stoneskinning the raid for things like Nerve Cloud in T11 back in ARR, and why if you really felt like it you could take Stoneskin as SCH for extra tank HP on dungeon pulls on top of Adlo. Right now, it makes benison unique in being the only healer skill that can further increase a tank's EHP past Adlo/Benific 2. If this is incorrect someone please slap me, though.

[Ghishlain]

Also, Kabzy, I want to say Benison stacks with SCH/AST shields. The tooltips for the latter specifically state not stacking with Adlo (for AST) and Nocturnal stance (for SCH). I haven't tested it in a long time but I could have sworn I looked at it early into the expansion and saw they stacked. Stoneskin always stacked with AST/SCH shields too, which is why we'd spend 8 GCDs stoneskinning the raid for things like Nerve Cloud in T11 back in ARR, and why if you really felt like it you could take Stoneskin as SCH for extra tank HP on dungeon pulls on top of Adlo. Right now, it makes benison unique in being the only healer skill that can further increase a tank's EHP past Adlo/Benific 2. If this is incorrect someone please slap me, though.

Unless they changed it in 4.1, Benison does indeed stack with Galvanize / Nocturnal Field. In fact Benison also stacks with TBN from DRK making for some super sweet shields when you put the two together.

I do agree that it sucks that Benison needs the Lily now that the midcore/hardcore raiders are basically at a point where casting single-target GCD heals is pretty inefficient. The only time I use Benison currently is either (1) things are going south because someone goofed or (2) when I'm doing Aero 3 after GC-Delta in O4S [SC + Cure II + DB after Aero 3 resolves so tank is ready for Earthshaker].

I would support any move to shift Benison away from the Lily requirement. Even if it gets a small CD increase to compensate (say 45s), at least then we would try to use the ability off CD at every opportunity with the added benefit of Lilies reducing the CDR on Benison if we had Lilies available at the time.

I also want to add that as much as I'd also be a proponent of DPS spells generating Lilies, I got a feeling we won't see that. Based on some of the comments from the developers and how they've done the healers so far, it doesn't feel like they would entertain the idea of a DPS augmenting a healer's healing kit as a means to "not encourage a feeling of Healer's needing to DPS".

[Kabzy]

Also, Kabzy, I want to say Benison stacks with SCH/AST shields.

Oh yeah I knew that but I should have elaborated. I was just speculating that IF they were to make an AoE version of DB, it would most likely have to be treated as our current shields and not be allowed to stack. Which would actually further ruin the spell because, as stated, it would lose its' uniqueness in being able to stack with shields as Stoneskin did before it.

[Erakir]

I also want to add that as much as I'd also be a proponent of DPS spells generating Lilies, I got a feeling we won't see that. Based on some of the comments from the developers and how they've done the healers so far, it doesn't feel like they would entertain the idea of a DPS augmenting a healer's healing kit as a means to "not encourage a feeling of Healer's needing to DPS".

Yeah I'm not really holding my breath, either. The mindset would be a bit ironic in this case, as the only thing it'd actually do is make it less intimidating to DPS ala the helpful augmentation without negatively impacting lily generation or healing capability should one choose not to DPS, a similar reasoning they used for the removal of the stance-dancing Cleric Stance. Still, I'm not expecting them to do anything like that due to backlash of "How dare you give a healing benefit to DPS!"

I might have to disagree with removing the lily requirement if it comes with a CD increase, though. That's a double edged sword in a way. I'd benefit, sure - It would certainly keep its use up for raiders as we use less cures, but it's a negative impact on the healers that are spamming cures a lot in dungeons, whether they're undergeared, inexperienced, or their party is doing dumb things. It might make healing harder for new healers that are generating plenty of lilies already. I'd be careful about more Plenary Indulgence scenarios, where making things more useful as the savage level leads to less usefulness outside of that content. Given I'd say this wouldn't be a major case (It's not like the usefulness is being lessened, simply the raw HPS of it), but if I were a dungeon WHM used to using benison every 24-30s or so and I saw it upped to 36-45 simply because raiders wanted to use it more, I have to say I'd feel slighted.

However, an offset to this would be an increase in the lily's effects if they're adamant on keeping it as cooldown reduction. After all, said cure spamming situations lead to an overabundance of lilies to benefit from.

Edit: Kazby - Gotcha! I see your point with that for sure