WHM 5.0 Discussion

[Ilenya]

I just hit level 10...I’m a little concerned about continuing the WHM path because of all of this conversation. I want to be useful in endgame, and if I’m a healer I don’t want to dps. Is whm for me?

For the record, you aren't ever 'required' to DPS as a healer but you are recommended to and expected to in times where healing isn't needed, because otherwise all you are doing is standing around.

[fantasticm]

I will need more analysis but I can see already WHM/SCH become meta for prog and speedkill.
AST will be just too bad now : pdps will be so bad, raid buff will be uninteresting to manage and not worth the effort, CO and CU nerf, shields as always inferior to those from SCH + can't stack with them while they have a ultimate skill which allow to play double stance for a limited time (so bye bye AST/SCH). AST will have nothing valuable in ShB.

I've heard AST's ultimate skill will allow their shields to stack with SCH's, though I haven't seen this confirmed. Even if it isn't true, AST isn't in so bad a place that it should be passed over for WHM. 6% is better than 0%.

Also, AST and SCH will almost certainly see buffs and QoL changes before the first raid tier drops, so we can look forward to another SCH/AST meta for the next 2 years... maybe more!

[Ilenya]

I've heard AST's ultimate skill will allow their shields to stack with SCH's, though I haven't seen this confirmed.

We can hope. If this is what knocks the SCH/AST meta down onto WHM/AST I will laugh so hard.

[Jxnibbles]

I will need more analysis but I can see already WHM/SCH become meta for prog and speedkill.
AST will be just too bad now : pdps will be so bad, raid buff will be uninteresting to manage and not worth the effort, CO and CU nerf, shields as always inferior to those from SCH + can't stack with them while they have a ultimate skill which allow to play double stance for a limited time (so bye bye AST/SCH). AST will have nothing valuable in ShB.

I disagree Whm/Sch yeah no. It looks to be the same Astro/Sch if what was shown so far is true.

Yes Whm wasn't hit as hard but not much was improved upon. Whm still offers very little but pure healing, and pure damage and that worked so well before.

I really hope something is shown more for all three healers.

[Yuyuka3]

I've heard AST's ultimate skill will allow their shields to stack with SCH's, though I haven't seen this confirmed. Even if it isn't true, AST isn't in so bad a place that it should be passed over for WHM. 6% is better than 0%.

Also, AST and SCH will almost certainly see buffs and QoL changes before the first raid tier drops, so we can look forward to another SCH/AST meta for the next 2 years... maybe more!

Yeah, that's what I fear as well, and what I think people grossly tend to overlook for some reason. But, hey. Tell us to just 'wait and see' and 'stop whining, you look oh-so amazing now', then after the other two got buffed enough to erase any miniscule advantage WHM had that we are 'fine after all, even if you are the weakest of the three, but not by much, honest! So stop complaining already' and then, after SCH and AST got over-buffed into high heaven again, finally 'yeah, no, sorry, but WHM is trash and should be deleted'.

And when the cycle repeats itself in 6.0, it will be squarely back to 'wait and see'.

I disagree Whm/Sch yeah no. It looks to be the same Astro/Sch if what was shown so far is true.

Yes Whm wasn't hit as hard but not much was improved upon. Whm still offers very little but pure healing, and pure damage and that worked so well.

I really hope something is shown for all three healers.

I mean. It's hard to gut a job that was already stripped of everything unique it had, so no wonder we weren't hit as hard by the hammer as the others - since the hammer already came down super hard on us an expansion before. And we didn't really get any compensation at all... so yeah, AST/SCH it is and anyone who thinks differently is delusional.

[IttyBitty]

The lily mechanic is no longer passive.

Lilies are actually even more passive than they were before since they charge over time in combat with zero interaction from the player at all in generating them. It is, in a way, a step backwards. Something passive is good in cases like BLM's Polyglot, because they already have the astral/umbral dance alongside Enochian, so generating polyglot as a reward for maintaining their buff is good game design.

Misery is a DPS loss on single target because the skills required to generate it (ie your lily spending skills) are all on the GCD, and it costs a GCD itself. You can call it DPS loss mitigation if you really want to (like others have taken to), but optimal WHM play on the vast majority of bosses will still continue to be "ignore lilies unless you have no choice"*), and in trash pulls it will be "spend as many lilies as you can as soon as you can no matter what". It is once again not good game design.

None of these changes really fix the core of the problem of WHM as a class, gives WHM skills that do exactly the same thing that their basic toolkit already does (albeit instantly [on the GCD] while costing a resource), gives us a stupid number of buttons that we can weave with (when all we needed was one we could use at any time) with not enough things to actually weave, and it has resulted in the gutting of the other two healers.

* I need to weave something > It's not optimal to refresh Dia/Regen at this moment to do so > the tank needs enough healing for Solus to not overheal (or raid for Rapture) -and- for my woven oGCD (ie Tetra/Assize) to not also contribute to overhealing.

[Mimilu]

While I appreciate that they gave use a new oGCD DPS ability, how they handled Afflatus Misery seems of weird to me.
In order to use it, you have to use up 3 Lilies first, but the only way to use up Lilies is by using the new oGCD heals, Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture.
While I'm guessing the idea is we're suppose to spam them (in addition to Tetra, Bene, Assize, and Asylum), it just seems weird to gate our only oGCD DPS ability behind healing...

[Josco]

While I appreciate that they gave use a new oGCD DPS ability, how they handled Afflatus Misery seems of weird to me.
In order to use it, you have to use up 3 Lilies first, but the only way to use up Lilies is by using the new oGCD heals, Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture.
While I'm guessing the idea is we're suppose to spam them (in addition to Tetra, Bene, Assize, and Asylum), it just seems weird to gate our only oGCD DPS ability behind healing...

It's not oGCD.

[EaMett]

I just hit level 10...I’m a little concerned about continuing the WHM path because of all of this conversation. I want to be useful in endgame, and if I’m a healer I don’t want to dps. Is whm for me?

Any healer at this point is expected to DPS when there's no healing to be done (which is often). The level of DPS moving into the expansion is not currently known as the devs have said they wanted to lower the healer dps requirements. But in SB unless you were in a very good group chances are you wouldn't be able to clear quite a few engame encounters without DPSing as healer. And if your group is very good they would probably expect you to dps in the first place. In ultimate you need to DPS significantly and will very likely need to continue DPSing a lot moving forward into ShB (for ultimates).

[Yuyuka3]

While I appreciate that they gave use a new oGCD DPS ability, how they handled Afflatus Misery seems of weird to me.
In order to use it, you have to use up 3 Lilies first, but the only way to use up Lilies is by using the new oGCD heals, Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture.
While I'm guessing the idea is we're suppose to spam them (in addition to Tetra, Bene, Assize, and Asylum), it just seems weird to gate our only oGCD DPS ability behind healing...

None of the Afflatus-skills are oGCD. They are all GCD, which makes Misery so horrifically bad unless you are forced to GCD heal... which shouldn't really happen to any extend that it makes Misery even just somewhat useful.