Should Divine Benison be improved?

[Erakir]

I'm not sure Trunks is talking about WHM being irrelevant, more towards a broader view of the healing systems in this game and concern for where it's all going. That said -

You don't ignore the tip top optimization of classes simply because most groups won't achieve it.

You certainly don't balance entirely around it, but you don't ignore it either. It's important to know what the ceilings are.

As for MP batteries....I'm pretty sure Mana Shift and BRD/MCH Refresh also works on WHMs and not just ASTs...so WHM can reap the benefits of that as well...so what point were you trying to make there?

So AST definitely isn't in a bad spot for MP, they are fine, but WHM is still better off because of Thin Air especially. MP management is really totally fine for all healers at the moment so this is a non-issue and a bad argument to make that WHM is somehow lacking compared to AST.

You missed the point entirely when it comes to MP, and in fact further emphasize it.

MP economy is often touted as a particular strength of WHM because, well, it certainly has ridiculous MP economy. Yet, that economy doesn't often come into play super often because other healer MP seems fine, particularly because of the abundance of MP batteries. Sure, WHM can get mana shift and refresh too.

So? What's it gonna do with that MP? Dump Cure 3s or holy spam for no apparent reason? We're already tailored around being able to cast cure 3 when relevant, and all of us are bound by the GCD. It's not gonna let us stone more; our single target DPS is cheap as heck. That refresh and mana shift are such a minor hit to the jobs using them means even the argument of "Well we have a WHM so we have to mana shift less" is poor, and it's not like there's amazing other role actions for them to take. I suppose if you had to have surecast you could keep Apocatastasis if you had the leeway to drop mana shift. Meanwhile, refresh compared to previous expansion Mage's Ballad - not losing any damage anymore to pop that one.

Until we see fights that play towards that strong MP economy more, it's not a good argument for "This is one of the things WHM brings to the table." We can also talk all we want about when everything is on fire and people are spamming desperately to stay alive, but at most this is a time saver for learning fights and does not come into play when people are playing relatively effective - not "on farm" - just reasonably well. This game, on the savage level, is not one where you will hobble through to a victory on death's door unless you already overgear the encounter.

Others have already mentioned how it can be a bigger benefit in, for instance, 24 mans, and they are correct - a WHM can keep going and that boss is not likely to have strict enrages. Same thing with dungeon and holy spam. But when we're talking about savage, it's another story and I find the MP economy argument doesn't hold much water specifically because nobody is hurting that badly on the MP front. I would argue if it were a more significant hit for mana batteries, the MP economy would naturally have more of an effect, as it did in the past. I mean, you only need look at the opportunity cost for using Ewers and how people want to avoid that on AST cause the other options are, quite frankly, more useful in most scenarios.

Edit: Does that mean WHM is irrelevant? Nope. So many times we've talked about things being pretty balanced all in all right now, and I will hold that view as well till more changes~