WHM 5.0 First Impressions

[Shurrikhan]

In SB, all three healers were pretty beastly in dungeons when played well in a good party.

Now, WHM remains a beast, while the other two are a bit less so, it seems to me.

On the whole, I'm pretty satisfied. If I could have just a few quick things, though:

1. Have Dia consume a tick of Glare with each hit, reducing its effective duration. In this way, we can be forgiven more offensive instant casts in single-target, which in turn offers us more mobility. Even pulling wall-to-wall in the new dungeons, I'm rarely having to tap into my Lily heals (let alone basic GCD heals) which means they aren't offering all that much mobility or weaving. The longer duration on Dia, while great for cleave, balances us around a gameplay that's not actually as flexible as Aero II's in single-target combat. Tick-consumption allows you both mobility/weaving and good cleave.
2. Increase the chance of Free Cure and ideally put it on a "normalized PPM" system (making its actual chance much higher the longer you go without using its proc -- i.e. over time -- making it like a soft-CD of sorts). That way I might have a reason to put it back on my bars as I've not since... jeesh, Pharos Sirius?
3. Find a way to work Aero III (and its Holy version) back in. Ideally through propagating or pseudo-AoE DoT ticks on the single-target DoT itself.
4. Make Fluid Aura worthwhile. Maybe even make it an Interrupt with a very, very faint knockback (which would essentially just make it a better interrupt, as some things can be knocked back and thereby interrupted without being directly interruptable).
5. Add back Divine Seal at like a 20-25% buff for 15 seconds. Upgrade it later to Temperance for the added damage resistance and duration (with Temperance itself also being increased to 25% if DS was). It's fun to have something to snapshot Regen into, and that shouldn't be limited to just level 80.

[Ni-tama]

This!!! Honestly this!! It's leaving a really awful taste in my mouth that the lvl 80 ability we get to look forward to is just an ability we've HAD SINCE 2.0, but has been taken and stolen from us time and time again.

[currentlemon]

The lily rework is good, but my concerns about the new system is similar to SCH's situation with its Aetherflow Stack. If we have all three lilies and the party is doing well, what are we going to use them for? The point of using the new lilies is to use the new Afflatus Misery. Obviously, you're not going to use the lilies for healing all the time, so shouldn't there something else we can use it for? A new utility skill? a new damage skill? There's got to be something shouldn't there? Also, it wouldn't hurt to have some skills back like Divine Seal and Cleric Stance. And for the love of God, DO SOMETHING about Fluid Aura! Come on, SE. Make me use that skill, not delete it from my hotbar.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

So I've really been enjoying the Afflatus heal spells. They feel like straight upgrades to Cure II and Medica. So far they've been up every time I've needed them and while I do sometimes sit on them, I'm starting to blow extra lilies on situations where I have to move, rather than clip Dia or just lose a cast overall. I'm getting refunded the potency in the end and I had to move anyway.

The only thing I can think of wanting is a way to maybe make lilies build faster, but it's not a problem as is.
I'm really surprised, they really just hit WHM in all the right spots. It feels personally strong and has reliable healing.

Oh and thanks SE for making Rapture effect Plenary Indulgence. Seriously it's a really good combo.

[Maeka]

Also for the people bemoaning the lack of Aero III...

Holy is now waaaaaay less MP to cast. Seriously, it's cheaper than Cure2 now.

So if you space out the Holy on trash pulls instead of spamming it and you don't make the mobs immune to stun right off the bat, you can save yourself a lot of MP lol.

EDIT: Did a Lv71 dungeon as WHM today, and I still think WHM feels about right. I'm certainly needing to throw more heals on single-pulls, but then nobody was Level Sync'd either. I easily had enough time to do some DPS and even a couple close calls on the last boss, but it wasn't as easy as, say, Stormblood healing was. I'm having to cast more heals, more often but yet that's a good thing. That's what I'm there for. But yet it's not so crazy that I'm having to spam heals every available second, either. It's a nice mix!

Now I feel like a healer rather than a DPS who sometimes heals.

Sure, I only have 3 DPS ... well 4 with a cooldown.... buttons now, but I wouldn't want anything more complex because there's no way I could keep a rotation going with all the heals thrown out. So whatever DPS I do needs to be simple and easy because I don't have a huge amount of time to wail away on enemies. And that's fine. I'm there to heal. I'll do DPS when I can.

[IttyBitty]

Also for the people bemoaning the lack of Aero III...

Holy is now waaaaaay less MP to cast. Seriously, it's cheaper than Cure2 now.

So if you space out the Holy on trash pulls instead of spamming it and you don't make the mobs immune to stun right off the bat, you can save yourself a lot of MP lol.

"For the people bemoaning the lack of ham in their sandwiches, butter is now soooo much cheaper. It's cheaper than bread now!"

Bread existing or butter being cheaper does not provide succor to those who liked having ham sandwiches as opposed to having buttered bread.

Also diminishing returns on stun take longer to reset than a pack generally lives for, so there's no reason to not chain cast holy. It's actually better if you just get it out of the way right at the beginning so that the tank can get full value out of their mitigation.

[Maeka]

"For the people bemoaning the lack of ham in their sandwiches, butter is now soooo much cheaper. It's cheaper than bread now!"

Bread existing or butter being cheaper does not provide succor to those who liked having ham sandwiches as opposed to having buttered bread.

Also diminishing returns on stun take longer to reset than a pack generally lives for, so there's no reason to not chain cast holy. It's actually better if you just get it out of the way right at the beginning so that the tank can get full value out of their mitigation.

You should at least wait for the first Stun to wear off, before applying a second though.

If the first Stun lasts for 3 seconds and the second Stun lasts for 2 seconds... if you cast both back-to-back, you're wasting a second or so of Stun. *shrug*

But either way, Aero III and Holy are both DPS spells, one does direct damage DPS the other did DoT. Either way, it's a nice trade-off, of being able to cast more Holy than before.

But I suppose there's no pleasing some people, they'll find anything to complain about.

[tinythinker]

So did we ever figure out why Afflatus Misery, which needs a Bloody Lily to work, comes two levels before Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture, which are needed to get a Blood Lily?

[Sebazy]

Solace is level 52 for me. I actually forgot to hotkey it until 74 amusingly.

[Silver-Strider]

Solace is level 52 for me. I actually forgot to hotkey it until 74 amusingly.

I realized I had Solace when I got Ravana in Trial Roulette with a bunch of New Leafs and was using it quite liberally when avoiding AoEs. It was a thing of beauty being able to move and heal at the same time without issue.