If SCH got Energy Drain back, why not do the same for WHMs?

[Archwizard]

DISCLAIMER: I know White Mage is in an excellent spot right now and I'm not idly asking for buffs because I'm under any delusion it "needs" them to compete. It was the first healer I leveled this expansion and I understand full-well it's crazy strong.

However, I would like to invite you to consider the following before you start throwing bricks at me just for saying "give" and "WHM" in the same sentence.

The primary justification for returning Energy Drain to Scholars has been so that Scholar would have a means to dump Aetherflow charges before its cooldown came back up, if healing skills weren't deemed necessary to burn them.

In the same sense, White Mage has a very similar resource system with its Lilies, but instead of being on a strict timer, it simply wishes to churn out Blood Lilies as often as possible for Afflatus Misery. However, the only means it has to do so right now is through healing spells, much like our Drain-less Scholars did -- and ones on the GCD at that, which means even less opportunity to use them during damage pushes.

So if SCH has an offensive resource dump "for when healing isn't necessary", why not do the same for WHM and its Lilies? Just for QoL?

For instance... Water magic? That's been a notable gap in WHM's arsenal since Fluid Aura lost its damage. It could still fit the Lily theme (Avatar fans know what I'm talking about), and even with the push to make WHM more Holy-oriented, we still see watery oGCD skills like "Divine" Benison. And with the lorebooks confirming Cure is Wind-aspected, we can't even argue "waters of life" for this, so it's just... weirdly missing.

To be clear here, I'm not suggesting that WHM necessarily even be "buffed" by this in any numeric sense. You could make Water no stronger than Glare or any rank of Stone, and just an alternative instant attack to spamming Aero/Dia in movement phases if the DoT's already on the target, akin to WHM's own Ruin II.
Alternately, it could be an oGCD attack, which would probably be mostly self-balancing without even needing to rank up, since it would always clip the GCD off Stone/Glare.
I honestly don't care how. My only concern in this thread is simply in offering the means to dump Lilies when your oGCDs were already sufficient healing.

If you've read this far and still disagree, feel free to throw bricks now, but I can't really see why we make one thing true for one but not the other.

[Mesarthim]

*Puts brick down*

One thing I'll give you is that I'm honestly confused on how fluid aura still exists in its current form. First it loses its damage, then it loses its knockback. I just finished leveling WHM to 80 and I didn't touch that skill once.

[GrimGale]

I am a SCH main and I have leveled and used all three healers so far in 80 Extremes and Savage.

I think WHM is currently the best designed of all three.
I don't think WHM needs a Lilly dump, rather I'd give it the ability to weave lilly healing between casts by making Afflatus Rapture and Solace into oGCDs.

If anything I'd make Fluid Aura increase the speed of lilly production either increasing the lilly gauge by one or speeding up the generation by X for X seconds.

All changes would require to adjust potencies of course.

WHM feels a bit clunky. I wish you'd be able to weave spells better.

[Lagomorph]

Sch is different from whm because we want to use aetherflow on cd to gain mp, but we also don't want to waste our stacks because they build fairy gauge. I don't really think the same thing applies to whm because you don't really get punished for holding your lillies if you don't need to heal; using your lillies just to get to misery is a dps loss unless you use them during downtime or you get to aoe with misery. That being said, overhealing with lillies during downtime just to gain a misery feels pretty bad. I think giving back stoneskin (untraited) to white mage at the cost of 1 lily per use would be a fair compromise. It's a weaker option than using afflatus solace in terms of throughput, but being a 10 minute shield you can use it and be almost certain that the shield will get put to use at some point in time. This way during down time, a white mage can use their lillies in a somewhat meaningful way other than just overhealing for a misery use.

[Eisenhower]

WHM feels a bit clunky. I wish you'd be able to weave spells better.

If there was more of a semblance of balance between the healers and their design, I'd say that WHM being GCD-dependent is by design. But honestly at this point I suspect SQEX just fling pasta at the wall and whatever shapes stick are implemented.

[Hereon]

I like the idea, however to not make it bonkers as all heck, using a lily that way should not build up the blood lily. Otherwise it would be massively overpowered.
And in terms of potency it would need to be at least 225, since that is the effective potency you build up by using a heal lily in terms of building towards misery.
I'd suggest it should be around 230-240 potency so you have a gain over spending it on healing. Since, even if i overheal with it, id choose the heal lily over a dmg lily if they have the same potency. 225 pot dmg + 1hp heal is still better than just 225 pot dmg.

[nalol]

the best would be to change ED .. coz now ED isn't used as a AF stack dump but as a way to increase dps.

If whm get similar lilly dump .. they'll use it to dps.


they should give some kind of CD or condition to ED so it's more tied to healing .. or better .. should have made a Fey damage ability that uses 50 fey gauge instead of ED

[Billythepancake]

the best would be to change ED .. coz now ED isn't used as a AF stack dump but as a way to increase dps.

If whm get similar lilly dump .. they'll use it to dps.


they should give some kind of CD or condition to ED so it's more tied to healing .. or better .. should have made a Fey damage ability that uses 50 fey gauge instead of ED

I disagree 100%, if ED were tied to the fairy gauge, we'd be back to 5.0 scholar and forced to overheal again,ED is fine as is, scholar should be a juggling act of balancing heals and dps, and ED consuming aetherflow is perfect for that. (Now they just need to fix the other issues with SCH)

As for the topic at hand, I do believe WHM could use a non heal stack dump, but not necessarily a dps dump, maybe a small buff dump would be better? Maybe they can increase their SS by 5% for x amount of time or whatever, or if it is a dps dump, then they'd have to nerf the power of misery so WHM isnt too strong.

[Mansion]

the best would be to change ED .. coz now ED isn't used as a AF stack dump but as a way to increase dps.

If whm get similar lilly dump .. they'll use it to dps.


they should give some kind of CD or condition to ED so it's more tied to healing .. or better .. should have made a Fey damage ability that uses 50 fey gauge instead of ED

But once again, useing ED for DPS is not sacrificing required healing. It's just that 3 healing cooldowns every minute is overkill, most of the time (unless savage healing check, but then you have a co heal to share the burden).
The return of ED is a good thing, and I'm pretty sure if ED did no damage but gave back MP and Fairy gauge, SCH would use it regardless.


Back to the Lily "problem", I think the current design is a bit more flexible than Aetherflow, because you can hold the Lilies until needed, and you can hold the Misery too, as Lilies will still generate.
I see the problem of making Afflatuses oGCD, because they kind of get in the way of Tetra (Assize possibly but it's used for damage more than anything). They now offer a bit of weaving, which is welcome.
The Lilies are powerful... but the game still does not require THAT much of a healing powerhouse. So, I do often throw Solaces or Raptures though they are not so much needed, but I don't want to sit with 3 Lilies. But given the current pDPS of White Mage, a DPS Lily dump would be a bit unfair I think. While a weaker Regen or shield option consuming a Lily would be easier to "dump" on a tank.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I know WHM is doing really good right now, but I do want to kind of bring up how lacking wings feels. Maybe it's because I can't actually SEE the 10% mitigation, but I'm comparing to SCHs Seraph and ASTs Neutral and they both feel powerful and you can see the results.

WHM I feel like I just popped Largresse. Nothing special, no one notices. It's not weak, I'm sure it has power behind it. But it doesn't FEEL strong.