WHM: An idea to change the freecure trap and to encourage using damage spells

[Peace-Division]

Some whm players spam cure 1 thinking its a good idea due to the chance to get a cure 2 cost zero mana (the trap) which causes whms across the level range to keep using it when its not a good spell to use when the whm kit expands into the cure 2+ holy+medica and onwards into the lily territory (lvl 45 and onwards).

To encourage dps which helps the group make it so that freecure bonus is now part of a stone/glare cast landing instead of it being on cure 1

In addition for every tick of damage that aero/dia does there is a 5% chance of reducing the cool down of lucid dreaming by 1 second. So more dots on enemies the better

And finally for every enemy assize causes damage to it has a 10% up to a maximum of 50% chance to make a stone/glare cast instant

[AnotherPerson]

Some whm players spam cure 1 thinking its a good idea due to the chance to get a cure 2 cost zero mana (the trap) which causes whms across the level range to keep using it when its not a good spell to use when the whm kit expands into the cure 2+ holy+medica and onwards into the lily territory (lvl 45 and onwards).

To encourage dps which helps the group make it so that freecure bonus is now part of a stone/glare cast landing instead of it being on cure 1

In addition for every tick of damage that aero/dia does there is a 5% chance of reducing the cool down of lucid dreaming by 1 second. So more dots on enemies the better

And finally for every enemy assize causes damage to it has a 10% up to a maximum of 50% chance to make a stone/glare cast instant

White mages do not need more MP with lucid dreaming and Thin Air to cover the MP cost. In terms of MP management, they are considered one of the strongest out there. Having freecure tied to stone/glare although seems good before lv 35, but I think I'd rather have it tied to cure since cure should be used only when your MP is bottoming out due to very healing intensive situations (a specific ultimate) or when you die. Having a freecure proc at that situation would be more ideal. Also, around lv 30-32 in Brayfox as a White Mage in leveling gear, cure is used very often in conjunction with cure II when healing and DPSing because you lack the regen skill to sustain the tank's HP at this point. Because cure II is expensive, freecure is very beneficial this dungeon run. Tying cure into a DPS skill cannot guarantee you will get a freecure proc when you really need it.

Just reducing the cooldown of lucid dreaming by 1 second per tick will encourage more Medica II spamming.

There's really no point to make assize -possibly - give you an instant cast since you can't guarantee you'll get the instant cast at the right time to weave your healing oGCDs. If there should be more weave windows, I rather they made White Mage more similar to Black Mage and get a second DoT. Say this DoT is renamed to Aero II and Dia and Aero II are no longer direct upgrades of each other.

Assuming Glare is 300 potency, by level 80 Aero II could be an instant cast GCD like before that does 60 potency on hit, but it will be a and 45 potency per tick over the duration of 24 seconds.

At a certain level (say lv 62), White Mages will get a trait [Enhanced Aero II] attached to the skill to have a 10% chance on each tick to have the next Aero II skill to add half its damage over time amount to the initial hit. The proc lasts for 24 seconds. 180 + 60 = 240 potency, so it's a DPS gain on instantly using the proc for Stone III and a minor DPS loss unless you hold onto the proc for Stone IV.

Then by level 72, when you get get the current [Aero II mastery] trait, which changes adding half its damage over time amount to the initial hit to adding the 75% damage over time amount to the initial hit, as well as getting your second DoT skill Dia. This will incentivize the white mage to have more weave windows with 2 DoTs. In the period of a minute, you can refresh your Dia DoT 2 times, get 2 Aero II DoTs without procs, and get 2 lilies (30 second for a lily), giving you at least 6 weave windows. Since the amount of damage Glare vs Aero II is minimal, it could be more beneficial to hold onto an Aero II proc for movement or to just refresh the DoT.

Then, when the next expansion is out, we can have an [Enhanced Aero II Mastery] Trait which on proc, makes the next Aero II add the full damage over time amount to the initial hit. Potencies could be adjusted with each trait to make the skill be worth holding onto like in the case of Thunder with Black Mage.

Adding this DoT I feel would break up both the monotonous use of Glare while adding extra weave windows to the White Mage gameplay.

[Seraphor]

The problem with Freecure, and similarly with ASTs crit Benefic II, is that the proc is the opposite way round to what is optimal.

Cure II should have a chance at proccing a crit or buffed Cure I, basically making Cure I the same potency as Cure II.
This way you save MP by healing the same amount of HP as Cure II, but with the MP cost of a Cure I.
Cure III should have a similar proc that turns Cure I into an AoE. Call it... Fullcure.


For AST I'd just have Benefic II downright replace Benefic I tbh.

[MartaDemireux]

I think the easiest route would be to directly upgrade Cure/Benefic into Cure II/Benefic II and give them traits for a % chance of being free/critical. Adjust cost and potency as needed. Maybe give Physick a rebalance alongside or an upgrade of it's own.

[glamazon]

If we’re thinking of new healer type abilities what about physicals upgrades to life line which ties the healers own health to the target draining the healer to heal? Or what about a spell called equilibrium which would balance the groups health so everyone had an equal amount?

[Seraphor]

If we’re thinking of new healer type abilities what about physicals upgrades to life line which ties the healers own health to the target draining the healer to heal? Or what about a spell called equilibrium which would balance the groups health so everyone had an equal amount?

Draining HP from the healer sounds like a very bad idea...

[Raikai]

There was always this debacle on what a WHM actually brings to the table and the answer was always "more healing". But in many occasions it's really just overhealing.

It would really be nice if the "boon" was actually WHM being able to do more personal dps without sacrificing a lot of healing, so yeah... I don't know if what the OP suggests is the best route, but something connecting Stone/Glare to a proc that would benefit healing would be nice.

[AnotherPerson]

If we’re thinking of new healer type abilities what about physicals upgrades to life line which ties the healers own health to the target draining the healer to heal? Or what about a spell called equilibrium which would balance the groups health so everyone had an equal amount?

Incoming Raidwide damage pretty much make that skill effectively useless and equilibrium already exists in the WAR kit, but it's just a flat potency self-heal instead of a balance HP spell. Honestly though, I can see the Balance HP spell being used even less since tanks have much higher amounts of HP at lv 80. if the total HP of the whole party was pooled together and then redistributed, the tanks would be losing a ridiculous amount of HP which makes them more even more vulnerable to tankbusters since the HP values in ShB skews the tank's HP by a ridiculous margin. That can easily cause wipes.

[glamazon]

The more I learn about this game the more it seems they have designed themselves into a corner.

[Lyth]

I think that the main issues with healing are that there isn't enough outgoing single target damage to adequately threaten your tanks (and the squishies in your party when the tanks die), that fights don't adequately force resource attrition/management, and there isn't enough reactive/variable elements to healing to keep you on your toes. When you can write out the entire damage script for a fight in advance, healing becomes an exercise in spreadsheet creation.

DPS is a separate issue. Tanks and healer damage output are progressively dropping off relative to damage dealers. Exciting dps rotations are almost an academic point if your skilled gameplay only provides a marginal contribution/benefit to your team. There has to be other new ways that healers can provide value, or else that gap between damage dealers and tanks/healers has to be much more narrow.

If we’re thinking of new healer type abilities what about physicals upgrades to life line which ties the healers own health to the target draining the healer to heal? Or what about a spell called equilibrium which would balance the groups health so everyone had an equal amount?

The original Guild Wars had a really fun ability called "Transfuse Health". It took away half your present health, and healed the target for double the amount lost. With a 1/4s cast time, it was also about 8 times faster than your standard heals. Made for some really interesting PvP situations. You couldn't die from it because it just halves your health, but it still had an interesting risk/reward dynamic to it.