WHM toolkit suggestions and changes (PI and Lily)

[Elamys]

A skilled WHM won't use their gcd enough to stack PI in the first place. (Outside of a select few fights).

Again, it's the current content and rate of damage vs. healing available that I think makes PI less useful, not its general design.

[EaMett]

Again, it's the current content and rate of damage vs. healing available that I think makes PI less useful, not its general design.

I just don’t see how you can separate one from the other. If you’re suggesting they should change the content to balance whm I’m afraid you’re in for disappointment. The content is what it is because they want all healers to be able to deal with it, that’s not going to change... like ever.

[Elamys]

It's not that they need to change the content solely to balance WHM. It's to address an entire pervasive problem with the game, particularly healers, in general.

Healing right now is focused more on how much DPS you can do, as opposed to your healing, just because the healing requirements are so very low and so predictable. I don't think this is because they want every healer to be able to heal every content - other MMOs can manage that without this kind of lax healing necessary. It's a problem with the entire pattern of damage in the game and how is is delivered. They are designing skills for damage that they don't put into encounters. DPS becomes the most important thing to do even if you're not a DPS because there's nothing else to do.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I just don’t see how you can separate one from the other. If you’re suggesting they should change the content to balance whm I’m afraid you’re in for disappointment. The content is what it is because they want all healers to be able to deal with it, that’s not going to change... like ever.

I just want to say that I do understand your point, content simply doesn't need the amount of healing a WHM brings, and even the fights that do have high healing requirements can be healed by everyone else, it's a real shame.

That being said, plenary indulgence does have it's uses. Just thinking of this tier alone, Kefka and God Kefka has plenty of back to back massive aoes and mechanics that need people at full HP (plenary really shines in this regard as it handles that few hundred HP a DPS may be missing) And the second Biblio in O7, back to back aoes, you'll easily hit at least two stacks.
Is PI necessary? Absolutely not, but it's far from useless.

[DaulBan]

Strictly in regards to plenary I just wish it never wore off (like aetherflow or a stance), so I could just hang on and use it for a larger burst of healing later. If I'm going to have to use medica or med2 it'd be nice if I could get the spent gcds 'refunded' in a way later on.

[EaMett]

It's not that they need to change the content solely to balance WHM. It's to address an entire pervasive problem with the game, particularly healers, in general.

Healing right now is focused more on how much DPS you can do, as opposed to your healing, just because the healing requirements are so very low and so predictable. I don't think this is because they want every healer to be able to heal every content - other MMOs can manage that without this kind of lax healing necessary. It's a problem with the entire pattern of damage in the game and how is is delivered. They are designing skills for damage that they don't put into encounters. DPS becomes the most important thing to do even if you're not a DPS because there's nothing else to do.

Other mmos have healer roles, like tank heal or party heal etc. (contrary to every healer can heal everything) They also have poor dps for healers to start with. FF14 wants easy healer leveling (higher dps) and focuses a lot on the low skill threshold they want to uphold as a casual friendly game. So all in all we won't see any of those, they've never moved towards it and most likely never will. This is again why I started my entire post with an assumptions disclaimer. We can cry all we want about healers not doing what we want them to do but it will never amount to anything unless we make suggestions in line with what SE wants to accomplish.

Also guys. I'm not saying PI is absolutely useless. It's just not a good skill for WHM (especially for an "at cap" skill). It has a high likelihood of being counter productive unless you're min-maxing and being extra careful. In pugs it's often the former.
It could be replaced by any number of better skills. I myself just decided to get rid of it completely in exchange for a hot consumption mechanic and more dps options.

And you shouldn't be stacking PI on o7s biblio (or anywhere really in o7s). The third plasma can be ignored so each healer can just deal with one while HoTs tick the third.

[Sebazy]

Also guys. I'm not saying PI is absolutely useless. It's just not a good skill for WHM (especially for an "at cap" skill). It has a high likelihood of being counter productive unless you're min-maxing and being extra careful. In pugs it's often the former.

On the contrary, I think it's actually at it's best as an optimisation skill. You don't need 3 stacks for it to be useful. I get a lot of value out of 1 or occasionally 2 stacks in quite a variety of content.

It's like saying Largesse isn't useful because it doesn't heal much by itself. The difference is that Largesse makes it clear whilst PI has a convoluted mess of a tooltip and a short duration that explicitly makes it difficult to use.

[EaMett]

On the contrary, I think it's actually at it's best as an optimisation skill.

On contrary to what? That it has a high likelihood of being counter productive or that it isn't a good skill? or both (because the former should lead to the later)

Also, Largesse is a lvl 40 optional skill which works almost as efficiently potency wise as PI (considering it's pretty rare to stack twice if you're optimizing), while PI is a cap level 70 skill. That alone should make you sad.

My point is that PI is only valuable as such (an optimization skill). And only if you use it properly because it's a pretty poor one at that.
Because you can find good use for it doesn't mean it's a good skill. It means you manage with what you have (I use it all the time too).
In the case of medica II, the basic principle of front-loading more healing on a skill that the second half of already overheals half the time is a lackluster design at best, period. It's hard enough not getting your co-healer to ruin your hots. Throwing out isolated examples of when it does work won't change that.
Cure III rarely requires a follow up. Medica is really the only skill that PI compliments properly and where 1 PI stack is significantly better than using Largesse.

You could literally replace PI with ANY non-broken healing mechanic and be better for it.

Again, because I can't emphasize this enough. Give any good healer some random free heal and they'll make good use of it. That's not what is being discussed here. It's about how PI compliments (or in this case doesn't) the whm toolkit. If anything the medica II + PI combo is terribly deceiving, especially for a beginner.

[Elamys]

Other mmos have healer roles, like tank heal or party heal etc. (contrary to every healer can heal everything) They also have poor dps for healers to start with. FF14 wants easy healer leveling (higher dps) and focuses a lot on the low skill threshold they want to uphold as a casual friendly game.

Admittedly, the only other MMO I've played at max is WoW, but that dichotomy of tank healer vs. raid healer has been dead for a very long time now in that game. Every healer has the responsibility of healing both the tank and raid. Even if that was the case in that game, every healer could effectively fulfill that role, just some better than others. I don't think people should be blaming "they want every healer to be able to heal everything" for how design is currently moving.

I think we all agree that PI is not the greatest skill, the problem is that overhealing with Medica 2 is going to be a huge problem no matter what other skills we have because there is too much healing and not enough damage in general.

[EaMett]

WoW must have come a long way if holy paladin can now be a viable raid healer o.O
And medica II issues could be easily counteracted with a skill that consumes the HoTs (hence [spirit consumption]). At the very least you would get more flexibility in dealing with your overhealing.