Another WHM Redesign - 6.0 Possibilities

[ty_taurus]

Snip...

I already do consider an MP Cost for Water/Banish actually. I think it would be necessary as well.

I see your point with the numbers on Eff uses. Seeing the numbers and how Eff > Glare turns into 1/4th an Afflatus Agony has me a little worried. A big part of the idea is to try and make White Mage the healer who's rDPS comes from burst damage gated by healing--something balances the "Green DPS" situation with more emphasis on GCD healing. Perhaps it would be better if Efflorescence also had a longer CD? If it was a spell on a 15 second cool down for example, it slows down a bit, keeps Eff > Glare in check, and I think would feel like a bit less pressure on players. Although adding that CD also adds a different kind of pressure to ensure you're using it whenever it's up... Maybe I'm overthinking this concern on Efflorescence. I do love the idea though, especially for making Solo questing as White Mage a bit more fun and less button-mashy.

You're absolutely right on Afflatus Raise. It was mostly a decision made to try and make all of the GCD healers transform to use Lilies, but it's really not necessary for an effective kit. Regarding the other Afflatus tools, I think the result is really to take all this Afflatus Cure/Medica/Etc. and revert it back to Afflatus Solace and Rapture. I feel like Afflatus Solace would still need something though, since it struggles to find opportunities where Afflatus Rapture or Cure II aren't better options. Perhaps Afflatus Cure II can stick around as Afflatus Solace II as an oGCD free heal.. but it's a 100% proc from Afflatus Solace, one that sticks around until you use it.

In this circumstance, Solace becomes a tool that unlocks what is essentially the removed Tetragrammaton, so you might want to have that accessible at times, and thus will want to find times to use Solace? Afflatus Medica II can be removed though, and probably Cure III could return. As for Regen, I like the idea of removing normal Regen and connecting it to the Lilies. My biggest concern would be how the WHM community would feel. Regen's a pretty useful and powerful tool, after all.

As for the Lily rewards for GCD healing... It's a tough call. It seems really excessive to just hand out Lilies for casting Cure/Cure II/Medica, but there's also a line between what is a true incentive to want to prioritize healing with GCDs outside of afflatus spells, and what's simply "DPS forgiveness?" Regardless, Cure needs something. Thematically, it should be your staple healing tool, yet we avoid it like the plague in favor of every other healing tool in the kit. if Regen is now exclusive to Lilies though, that does place more pressure on WHMs to consider it over the MP-burning Cure II.

I'm not sure if you saw, but I did add onto Plenary Indulgence more Lily time shaving--1 second per target with Confession healed. Now especially, I'm not fond of the tool. I kind of hate Plenary because it feels so excessive. What are your thoughts on it?

[Jaelommiss]

I already do consider an MP Cost for Water/Banish actually. I think it would be necessary as well.

I see your point with the numbers on Eff uses. Seeing the numbers and how Eff > Glare turns into 1/4th an Afflatus Agony has me a little worried. A big part of the idea is to try and make White Mage the healer who's rDPS comes from burst damage gated by healing--something balances the "Green DPS" situation with more emphasis on GCD healing. Perhaps it would be better if Efflorescence also had a longer CD? If it was a spell on a 15 second cool down for example, it slows down a bit, keeps Eff > Glare in check, and I think would feel like a bit less pressure on players. Although adding that CD also adds a different kind of pressure to ensure you're using it whenever it's up... Maybe I'm overthinking this concern on Efflorescence. I do love the idea though, especially for making Solo questing as White Mage a bit more fun and less button-mashy.

Most jobs with burst windows have low throughput most of the time and multiple strong abilities that are all used together. How would you feel is Aff. Misery/Agony applied three stacks of the Eff debuff to the target? Aff. Agony would then deal 1200 Pot in damage and a further 900 from three Eff stacks used on Glare.

Assuming one minute per B. Lily and 24 GCDs per minute you would have:
Eff x4, Dia x2, Banish x1, [spend Lily] x3, Aff. Agony x1
That's 11/24 GCDs. Supposing each Cure/Medica generates 15 secs of Lily you will need two of them.

That leaves 11 Glares per minute. Four of them will be buffed by Eff. To keep the same Pot/minute we need to remove 900 Pot. Taking a straight 80 Pot from Glare would leave WHM incredibly weak until gaining Aff. Misery/Agony, though you reduced Misery to L54 so that's less of a problem. If the bonus for using Glare with Eff drops below Glare's Pot then it becomes a dps loss to use Eff with Glare. Perhaps drop Glare to 200 Pot and Eff > Glare to 250 would work? That's a reduction of (11*50)+(4*50) = 750 Pot which matches the 3*250 = 750 that would be gained from adding three stacks of Eff.

Balancing this depends entirely on how often a Blood Lily is supposed to be gained. Every 60 secs sounds like a good idea to me because it'll align well with raid buffs. Perhaps instead of awarding a n seconds of Lilies it would be better to gain +y% Lily generation for (1/y%)n seconds? This way a minimum time per B. Lily can be implemented. Using +50% would give 60 secs per B. Lily if the increase can be maintained at all times. +100% would reduce that to 45 secs. If duration from spells is additive then a maximum cap would be required.

The more that time between B. Lilies is reduced, the less that Glare will be used. If Cure I awards all three Lilies at once there is a minimum time per B. Lily of 30 secs.
0.0 — Eff
2.5 — Dia
5.0 — Cure
7.5 — [Spend Lily] x3
15.0 — Eff
17.5 — Glare
20.0 — [Spend B. Lily]
22.5 — Glare x3
Ends at 30.0

The times listed correspond to the start of the listed casts. Banish would be used in place of the 17.5 Glare. 30 secs per B. Lily gives seven Glares per minute. This feels far too frequent to me. I only worked it out for comparison's sake.

You're absolutely right on Afflatus Raise. It was mostly a decision made to try and make all of the GCD healers transform to use Lilies, but it's really not necessary for an effective kit. Regarding the other Afflatus tools, I think the result is really to take all this Afflatus Cure/Medica/Etc. and revert it back to Afflatus Solace and Rapture. I feel like Afflatus Solace would still need something though, since it struggles to find opportunities where Afflatus Rapture or Cure II aren't better options. Perhaps Afflatus Cure II can stick around as Afflatus Solace II as an oGCD free heal.. but it's a 100% proc from Afflatus Solace, one that sticks around until you use it.

In this circumstance, Solace becomes a tool that unlocks what is essentially the removed Tetragrammaton, so you might want to have that accessible at times, and thus will want to find times to use Solace? Afflatus Medica II can be removed though, and probably Cure III could return. As for Regen, I like the idea of removing normal Regen and connecting it to the Lilies. My biggest concern would be how the WHM community would feel. Regen's a pretty useful and powerful tool, after all.

Why not remove Cure II entirely? You're right that it has massive design overlap with Solace. If Lilies are going to generated more frequently and you want to use Cure to make that happen, then is there any downside to getting rid of Cure II? If you want to keep it then I'd suggest making Solace apply Benison to the target. Maybe reduce the strength of either the heal or the shield. Around 1000 Pot combined should be fine. Having 100% chance to unlock Aff. Cure II would definitely work instead. As long as it's not RNG then it can be reliably planned around. If Regen is converted to a Lily spell then I'd make Solace around 75% of Regen's cumulative potency.

As for the Lily rewards for GCD healing... It's a tough call. It seems really excessive to just hand out Lilies for casting Cure/Cure II/Medica, but there's also a line between what is a true incentive to want to prioritize healing with GCDs outside of afflatus spells, and what's simply "DPS forgiveness?" Regardless, Cure needs something. Thematically, it should be your staple healing tool, yet we avoid it like the plague in favor of every other healing tool in the kit. if Regen is now exclusive to Lilies though, that does place more pressure on WHMs to consider it over the MP-burning Cure II.

I pulled up a couple WHM logs from E8S. My cohealer used 66 GCD heals + Tetra over the 14 minute fight. My friend used 49. Let's call average use somewhere around 50 GCDs. I included tetra in those numbers because you removed it and it'll need to be replaced with a GCD heal. Accounting for downtime and rounding up gives an average of 5 GCDs per minute.

This represents the upper maximum of necessary healing outside of Ultimate. Other than solo healing or brute force healing through people standing in aoes I can't see more healing than this ever being required.

Assuming we aim for 60 secs per B.Lily, there will be three Lily heals per minute. That leaves 2 GCDs for Cure/Cure II/Medica. If they each generate 15 secs of Lily (or +50% generation for 30 secs) then we get the three Lilies per minute. A third GCD heal would require for 10 secs Lily generation / +50% for 20 secs.

I think I would use +50% for 30 secs, to a cap of 60 secs. This rewards using two GCDs per minute on top of Lilies and gives them an average potency of (2100+3*250)/6 = 475 Pot per GCD. Heals used in excess of this wouldn't award anything. Optimal play would involve using those GCD heals even if no one is hurt to ensure that an extra Lily is generated every minute.



For comparison, those two WHMs used 28 and 31 GCD+Tetra heals in E6S this week. Both pulls were 9 mins. Three Lilies per minute would have them needing only a third of a non-Lily GCD (on average) per minute. More B. Lilies means more normal Lilies means less non-Lily healing is required.

I'm not sure if you saw, but I did add onto Plenary Indulgence more Lily time shaving--1 second per target with Confession healed. Now especially, I'm not fond of the tool. I kind of hate Plenary because it feels so excessive. What are your thoughts on it?

I would revert Plenary to how it was at the end of Stormblood. Medica I/II, Cure III all generate a Confession stack on whoever they heal for 30 (60?) secs. Using Plenary converts those stacks into HP. I wouldn't have a problem if those stacks also conferred some time towards a Lily. I'm not sure if Aff. Rapture should generate stacks or not. A Lily heal generating Lilies is going to make it more desirable if it'll save a Cure/Medica.