Let's Discuss: WHM's new Lily System

[currentlemon]

Alright, since I haven't seen anyone post this yet, I'll do it now. I want to discuss the new lily system Square has put out for us. Please note, that I only have a lvl. 70 WHM and I do NOT have Shadowbringers. However, I still want to talk about it given that WHM was the least butchered healer out of all three.

So, here's what I think about the new lily system.

It has potential.

That's it. The new system just has potential. I think Square did a pretty good job reworking the WHM's lilies Granted it took them two painstaking years to fix this, but at least they did it. When playing around WHM at some lvl. 70 dungeons, all I can say about the new Afflatus Solace is that it felt good. It felt good that I have another healing skill at my disposal while my other skills are on cooldown, and it definitely made it a lot easier to manage my party's health.

Because of this, I look forward to getting the new expansion and trying out the new skills. However, this doesn't mean that Square should stop here. They can improve the system overtime.

But the question is, what else can the lilies be used for?

Having three lilies is great, but in the long run, I see it being a potential problem. Like the Aetherflow issue with SCH, what can the WHM do with his/her lilies when the party is doing well? Perhaps a party utility? It would certainly help the job if SE gave a new utility skill to WHM that involved lilies. Plus, it would fix a longtime WHM issue.

But what should it be? In past FF games, WHM had abilities like Protect, Shell, Brave, Faith, Haste, etc. With Protect gone, perhaps Square can give a new protect skill that gives a temporary defense boost to a single player (or the entire party)? Maybe add a haste or Brave skill (perhaps both)?

Having more lily skills at lower levels would certainly help too. It would encourage both new players and people leveling the job to use the new lilies. Which is why I'm in favor of introducing a lower leveled Afflatus Misery around the 50-60 level range (perhaps introduce it at levels 60-70 if SE wants to play it safe).

So many ways that SE can work with. But it's up to the developers on what they want with the new system.

But what do you guys think? Where should SE go with the new lily system. Discuss.

[Semirhage]

While I would love it if WHM got some of this, Square seems dead set against WHM having anything more than vanilla healing and damage abilities. With SCH and AST players shrieking so loudly this week, look forward to this kit not changing for two more years while they get buffed, buffed, and buffed.

[Almatiel]

Lilies actions - they need to be oGCD + we need 1 lily action for damage or a buff to an ally. Im always sitting on 3 stacks with no need to heal

Blood Lily (havent used it yet, but that is not the point) - would be nice to have an alternative. Maybe add second blood lily action which will heal and place a buff on everyone. Possible reduce spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by 20% for 15 sec (presence of mind)

Crazy idea i had to kill 2 birds with 1 stone is to give FA a trait past lvl 60 which would transform it into lily action. Make a 300 potence aoe with 50% less to all other targets + dot (and give Aero 3 animation)

Or just give us Aero 3, buff FA and add lily spell for damage or to spend on something else but healing

[fantasticm]

Similar to SCH's Aetherflow, there needs to be some way to expend a lily on a damaging ability, a buff, or even absorbing them to restore MP - literally anything other than just a replacement for a heal we already have. Making the Afflatus skills oGCD would also be a HUGE improvement - not only would it make them more useful, they would also feel much better to use. As of right now, building towards Misery feels more like a chore than something to look forward to as a reward for good gameplay. Furthermore, if any of the Afflatus skills were moved to be pre-70, I think a trait that would increase the rate at which lilies are gained would be a huge boon. Something something lilies pop faster when you have regen active, or something like that.

But of course, I must agree with Semirhage; if WHM gets touched at all throughout the expansion, it will more than likely be in the form of nerfs. Assize, Thin Air, Holy, and even Temperance are all likely candidates for the nerf bat. As much as I'd like to see improvements to the lily system (since we are obviously stuck with it now), I doubt we'll get any.

[Kuurei]

I've had no real issue expending lillies for healing. 700 pot from Solace even on a GCD for absolutely free every 30 seconds is far more effective than a 450 pot Cure. 300 pot Rapture for free every 30 seconds, especially on bosses that you know there will be impending AoE spam (Batsquach in particular comes to mind, but Eros in the same dungeon, have drawn out, high-damage AoE phases). Think of the Lily heals as a means of saving yourself 800 MP or 1000 MP depending on the situation (2 Cure 1s to exceed 700 pot and a free Medica to match 300 pot) and how mana starved you might actually be.

I would actually prefer utility if we had to get anything else at all beyond just using them for healing. Maybe an Afflatus Sanctuary that feeds 2 Lilies at once in exchange for a 20% raid-wide DR for 20 seconds. Or an Afflatus Cognizance that reduces raid wide MP consumption for 30 seconds, except for the Healer that cast it.

[Syrehn]

While I do like that the new Lily system auto generates Lilies over time it's clunky at best.

I seriously dislike that the new Afflatus abilities are just an exact copycat of our existing spells with the exception that it consumes a lily stack vs. using mana. Honestly, we didn't need a 1 for 1 duplication for skills that we already still have.

Overall, the entire thing just feels forced. It's especially crappy when the group is sitting at full health and the only way to use the Blood Lily if we want to use that extra DPS ability is by blowing stacks on absolutely nothing. Let's not even talk about if you want to help AOE down a mob pack since Aero III was our AOE dot... guess it's back to Holy spam then (not only is that boring but can be annoying to the party as well - animation/sound).

The Afflatus skills need to be oGCD (as noted by others) and we need a way to be able to burn a stack other than just via Afflatus healing. I aaaaaalmost feel like Lily stacks don't build fast enough either but that might just be me.

Not sure what they'll do to fix us, if anything. I suspect most of the love will go towards AST while we sit forgotten in the corner. We likely won't see much of anything happen in regards to balance/tuning until after they start getting feedback from healers doing the upcoming Savage content.

[Kuurei]

While I do like that the new Lily system auto generates Lilies over time it's clunky at best.

I seriously dislike that the new Afflatus abilities are just an exact copycat of our existing spells with the exception that it consumes a lily stack vs. using mana. Honestly, we didn't need a 1 for 1 duplication for skills that we already still have.

Overall, the entire thing just feels forced. It's especially crappy when the group is sitting at full health and the only way to use the Blood Lily if we want to use that extra DPS ability is by blowing stacks on absolutely nothing. Let's not even talk about if you want to help AOE down a mob pack since Aero III was our AOE dot... guess it's back to Holy spam then.

The Afflatus skills need to be oGCD (as noted by others) and we need a way to be able to burn a stack other than just via Afflatus healing. I aaaaaalmost feel like Lily stacks don't build fast enough either but that might just be me.

Not sure what they'll do to fix us, if anything. I suspect most of the love will go towards AST while we sit forgotten in the corner. We likely won't see much of anything happen in regards to balance/tuning until after they start getting feedback from healers doing the upcoming Savage content.

I do actually feel that they're too slow. Mostly, I end up holding onto any that are built during the first couple of trash packs until someone forgets to pop CDs, or until we reach the boss where I use them combined with Benison to mitigate overall group damage based on the specifics of the situation.

If we got them every 15s instead, they might see more use. Alternatively, if we get some raid utility with them it would be even better. Maybe bring Shell and Protect back, or some kind of ability to convert 30% HP into a Blood Lilly.

[Yuyuka3]

Copy-pasting this from the other WHM thread:

So, I got to test WHM in the new level 80 dungeons today and I have to say... it feels even slower to me than before. I spend so much time waiting for the GCD to wear off after using one of my new instant skills while not having much to weave with, it's not even funny... if I use them at all, which, except for Afflatus Rapture, I barely ever do outside of trash packs. Temperance is also either not really needed, or needed more often than I can use it with overzealous tanks, confirming my underwhelming first impression of the skill. It really needs a shorter CD, and at least Afflatus Misery needs to be oGCD or else I will have gone mad before the raids even drop. Better would be all of them being oGCD, but on a CD for a few seconds. Also, I was still sitting on 3 Lilies from time to time without any feasible way to dump them (I refuse to overheal/loose DPS through suboptimal Lily usage), so I really think we need a way to dump them outside of healing.

I also noticed that my heals feel kinda underwhelming compared to how much they healed before relative to party HP and I actually used two AoE-heals back-to-back a few times already to make sure people got enough HP for the next mechanic, which isn't all that bad I guess, but pretty annoying. It might be because of this being the start of the expansion and our Mind stat being very low in comparison, but I'm not quite sure about this. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but as I said, slightly annoying when you know how it was before. It looks like this is an impression across all healers, too.

The one thing I really like about the new WHM, though, is that it's basically impossible to run out of MP now...

Small addition, but I think that we really need to be granted at least one, or best even three, Lilies when we start a battle; it's just annoying having to wait 30 seconds just to use them once, and 90 to build all three stacks.

Also unfortunately have to agree with Semirhage again, with the other healers complaining so much and at times even crying nerf, we are in to another expansion of WHM stagnation while AST and SCH get buffed into high heavens (or, you know, maybe even WHM nerfs incoming...), and SE being surprised healer balancing is still such a huge, glaring issue. I almost cannot wait to tell the "wait and see"-crowd that I told them so... or would, if it wasn't so sad and frustrating.

[Atlantasia]

Right now WHM is playing as a discount store SCH because the Lily System is playing like a 1 Aetherflow stack every 30 Seconds with crappier actions to expend them on.

The same weakness is apparent because of this, no non-healing drain when no healing is needed. On top of this, Solace is just a worse Lustrate that you cannot spam because it's GCD.

I haven't hit 76 yet (nearly there), so I have no comment on Rapture yet, but Misery doesn't make Solace feel more fun for me so far.

I don't mind having a similar skill management to SCH, but recycling our own skills and effects is meh to me. I want something other than just a Swiftcast Med I and Cure II with no MP cost.

I'd be all for a party buff, but I don't see them ever going that direction for WHM. I am fine with top pDPS that offsets the pDPS and rDPS that SCH and AST provide, if it's roughly equal, then I'm fine with that direction too.

Is the new system a step in the right direction? Yes. But I don't think it's quite far enough and we all know they'll be buffing AST and SCH for half the expansion so any minor things WHM has as an advantage will quickly disappear with subsequent patches.

[Shurrikhan]

Lilies actions - they need to be oGCD + we need 1 lily action for damage or a buff to an ally. Im always sitting on 3 stacks with no need to heal

I would disagree if not for their needing to be consumed in order to access the nuke skill; making them oGCD would only encourage unnnecessary Regen usage for the instant cast necessary to weave them, rather than providing a space in which to weave, and would obviously requiring them to be tuned down, to boot.

In the typical dungeon run, I use my Lily heals between pulls just to ready my damage skill because unless my tank pops little mitigation or my DPS suck, I still don't need anything more than a precast Medica II-Regen (or usually just Regen) from my GCD heals.

On the whole, my preference is still the same as in 4.x -- replace the Lilies with Elemental mechanics, including more frequent near-optimal access to instant-cast Wind spells, such as through a unique DoT mechanic or the like such that our damage can improve upon our healing/defensive_utility and our healing on our swiftness of offense, with a decent amount of mobility/weaving_space in the mix.