Let's Discuss: WHM's new Lily System

[Cerick]

You either get 3 redundant gcd heals with 1 big ogcd damage, or 3 less powerful aoe damage skills that culminates in 1 big ogcd heal. 3 less powerful damage skills might not be as satisfying to see number wise but at least your not wasting gcds on useless healing, also you get another ogcd heal out of it so you get to save that for later which is really satisfying (like a whm indom)

3 less powerful abilities that take 3 GCD is how I look at it. I need to heal still, but 1 GCD to pop a nice big damage ability then back to healing is nice. It's not about a large number that is shiny to see, it's about the fact that it is an amount of damage that isn't insignificant and doesn't take 3 GCD which I could have just cast Holy or Glare for the same damage. It is balance in that it can only be used when you have a blood lily.

More off GCD heals are not really needed in my opinion. We have a basket of utility to instantly cast group heals already. Swift Cast --> any of our AE heals, Assize, Afflatus Rapture. Benediction for single target 180 second cool down full heal. Tetragrammaton instant heal.

Some things to do while waiting for GCD is hit Presence of Mind and Thin Air, then begin spamming Holy chains for stuns and AE damage. Hit Tetragrammaton for OGCD heal the tank and when needed, hit Afflatus for another instant tank heal, then either DPS more or heal more as needed. Another GCD? hit Lucid Dreaming.

30 seconds to wait for a lily is very reasonable and the only time I am ever out of them is at the beginning of a dungeon. Most tanks pull more than 1 group of trash, so Dia one and it will start your Lily generation while you're running to follow the tank to the trash kill spot. If it was less than 30 seconds for easy lily, you could be using Misery once a minute! That would be a bit overpowered as a healing class to me. I cast misery at least twice between each boss battle and usually 2 or more time during the boss battle. My lilies do not go to waste !

GCD need to exist or the game just becomes Final Fantasy button mash.

[Wilford111]

You either get 3 redundant gcd heals with 1 big ogcd damage, or 3 less powerful aoe damage skills that culminates in 1 big ogcd heal. 3 less powerful damage skills might not be as satisfying to see number wise but at least your not wasting gcds on useless healing, also you get another ogcd heal out of it so you get to save that for later which is really satisfying (like a whm indom)

See, I like the whole lily system because since each GCD spent on Solace goes toward an attack worth 3x what one Glare is worth, it's like you never stopped dpsing in the first place. I would think more people would be on board with this :/

[RegularJoe]

The new Lily system is much better, in that there's an actual use for it. WHM needed something, and this is definitely something, compared to the nothing it was in SB. At the moment it really is a discount SCH in terms of function. 3 stacks for extra healing abilities. You do get to build up to a potent damage spell near the end, but the same issue with Aetherflow attacks is apparent: "What do you do with these resources when there's nothing to heal?"

Due to SE's hard stance on keeping the WHM's identity at pure/regen heals, and AST/SCH being what they are now, I'm not going to hold out on anything worthwhile being added to this for a long time. But, WHM is definitely at a better place than what it used to be. It does have potential, and I'd love for it to be expanded on. Right now, WHM feels powerful, and unlike the other two healers, it doesn't have much of a dissonance to its kit. I do have to say that the Cure line has all but been phased out at this point; they need some sort of extra to them.

[Johaandr]

I hate the Instant skills with GCD... I rather want Misery to be a cast so i can go back and cast Glare.
So far i only use Afflatus Misery whenever Assize is up.

[Gemina]

Both WHM and SCH need something to spend their resources on other than heals. For example I don't really want Divine Benison to become a lily skill again, but now it makes more sense for it to be one. I don't know if they will allow another support or damage ability but they need something, and access to it for both probably needs to happen somewhere between 50 and 60.

Edit: Wanted to mention that SCH does have Sacred Soil to burn some flows on, which after doing some roulettes I found myself using much more liberally than pre ShB.

[Nanami_Naniwa]

My WHM reached Level 76 and I have some experience with the new lily System.

I like that you now get the Lilies over time instead of having to cast a heal spell that actually has to heal the Person. Because earlier on when you are doing a Trial with a Scholar and he is shielding like a maniac you could get minutes before proccing one Lily.

Also I like that it doesn't give CDR anymore but rather let you cast different spells. However, I would have prefered to have more than two spells I could work my Lilies with. At Level 80 it probably Comes down to either single target or Group heal.

The dps lily feels a bit off for me. it takes quite a Long while until you get it to proc (and sometimes you just spam your lilies even though you don't Need them just to proc the blood lily). It is a nice dmg Booster but you are not going to use them that often.

Overall changes I do like. Especially the confession Change as it is now a cooldown you can use to couple in heavy aoe for extra healing.

[Trunks]

I dislike that the Afflatus heals are used to nourish the Blood Lily. The benefit to them is supposed to be that they're instant (and, thus, mobile) and cost no MP. The Blood Lily should have been a way to encourage use of Cure and Cure II. It would've made a lot more sense: "here are these helpful tools, but you're better off standing still and casting when you can because you can offset the DPS loss". Instead it's, "never cast Cure or Cure II again lol".

I also dislike the way Lilies are generated. It's just a cheap knock-off of Aetherflow. If the Afflatus heals weren't used for the Blood Lily, there would be no reason not to just have Lilies generated by casting Stone / Glare or Holy rather than passively on a timer - again, because you'd be better off using cast-time spells which allow you to offset your DPS loss. It would also feel a lot less awkward to sit on 3 Lilies, because you're not "losing" the Blood Lily or the timer on generation.

They also could have made some of the additional effects on WHM abilities a lot more interesting by tying them to Lilies. For example, what if Asylum consumed a Lily on use (but did not require one) to get the additional +10% healing effect? This would be more reason still to give WHM active generation of Lilies rather than this passive garbage that we barely interact with. Assize could do the same to get its MP restore effect; Divine Benison could refresh active Regen on the target. Simple stuff, but it at least would require us to rub two neurons together.

[Irenia]

I dislike that the Afflatus heals are used to nourish the Blood Lily. The benefit to them is supposed to be that they're instant (and, thus, mobile) and cost no MP. The Blood Lily should have been a way to encourage use of Cure and Cure II. It would've made a lot more sense: "here are these helpful tools, but you're better off standing still and casting when you can because you can offset the DPS loss". Instead it's, "never cast Cure or Cure II again lol".
...
They also could have made some of the additional effects on WHM abilities a lot more interesting by tying them to Lilies. For example, what if Asylum consumed a Lily on use (but did not require one) to get the additional +10% healing effect? This would be more reason still to give WHM active generation of Lilies rather than this passive garbage that we barely interact with. Assize could do the same to get its MP restore effect; Divine Benison could refresh active Regen on the target. Simple stuff, but it at least would require us to rub two neurons together.

I rather like the fact that lilies aren't auto-consumed on skill use, therefore I like that Solace and Rapture are Cure II and Medica in all but name. Gives me more control over when to spend them.

The fact that lilies were used on your next compatible skill automatically was one of the worst parts of the old lily system, after it's useless effect, of course. Before Benison's lily requirement was removed, it was impossible to Cure -> Regen -> assize -> Aero -> Benison, and the most common way to Benison was to cast cure beforehand. When Benison was allowed to be cast whenever, it still had the crappy auto-consume effect, but by then the lilies were truly of no consequence.

[RopeDrink]

Won't pretend like it's perfect but I like it as is. The instants are potent and decent for weaving, and rather than adopt some annoying system where you would have to hold onto them/save them up to gain a blood-blossom, you benefit by using them instead - the payoff being 50k (flat) to 64k (crit) degrading burst that you can pseudo-stack twice, or throw around willy-nilly as you see fit. The balance between frequent usage vs charging up is decent, giving you means to keep using your standard heals for the most part if you're being generous, or just hold onto them as your main source of healing.

Like it or not, I don't think anyone can honestly say it is worse than the previous version. It was so bad I made a point of hiding the lily bar due to how inconsequential it was. Now I actively keep an eye on it to determine the gap between the next Afflatus and/or how many pocket CD's I'm free to weave between my other buttons.

WHM feels similar to how it was before, just with slightly more consideration and much better buttons. The Lily system itself won't make any waves but I welcome the change.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Atm, the balance between healers is sitting on the absolute edge. SCH healing is, beyond any doubt, broken and OP. It's balanced by their lower damage. Same case as AST, but they're instead balanced by utility. WHM has it's personal DPS, and that's all. They need to let WHM keep this or we're going to be back to square one.

That out of the way, as far as the actual Lily system, I like it. I found that Misery is definitely worth using on CD and yes, you're not going to need 3 Lily heals within 90s. The trick I've been using so it doesn't feel too bad is to weave a Lily heal with Assize or Benison or, even better, use it as a movement tool. When you do have to move for more than you'd like, instead of clipping Dia or just losing a cast altogether, use a Lily heal. You probably won't need it, but you're simply doing this for Misery which is absolutely worth it.
There is one thing I would like to see changed though. You shouldn't lose your misery build up if you happen to use a Lily while you have the blood Lily. It's way too punishing.