Developers : Healer design mentality needs to change

[Anhra]

WHM still has the AOE stun, but Scholar got bane taken away and replaced with Art of Ground Slap, which is a skill I hate so much because SE basically took away our fountain pen and gave us a crayon to write with instead.

What makes this matter even better, is that art of "war" is just a recycled skill from pvp that used to have a knockback effect. And it is also quite interesting how WHM is the only job allowed to have a additional effect on his AoE while also being allowed to possess a discount price foul spell. Meanwhile dedicated AST wept on the loss of the old card system and gravity losing its slow effect and SCH got miasma, shadowflare and bane removed, because lord forbid, if youre going to dps.

[Recon1o6]

What makes this matter even better, is that art of "war" is just a recycled skill from pvp that used to have a knockback effect. And it is also quite interesting how WHM is the only job allowed to have a additional effect on his AoE while also being allowed to possess a discount price foul spell. Meanwhile dedicated AST wept on the loss of the old card system and gravity losing its slow effect and SCH got miasma, shadowflare and bane removed, because lord forbid, if youre going to dps.

Blood lily is nowhere near as good as foul. You get foul every 30 seconds and its not conditional at all on the incompetence of your party members or tanks taking damage. Just based on your own ability to cast 2 spells within 30 seconds

I don't believe gravity had a slow? Unless it was pvp. I do remember it having decent damage of 250+20% less for all others back in HW which meant you could use it as a dps burst with lightspeed because it was better than malefic at the cost of being hideously expensive mp wise and slow cast time, both of which lightspeed fixed for its duration.

I completely agree with all points though, healers should not have lost all this stuff. We have to dps too, how else are we supposed to clear the msq? our damage shouldn't be this pitiful either, 140 potency is a tickle with current mob hp.

Please return Aero 3 with complimentary water magic, cards and time magic, dots+bane+shadowflare+fester and some actual potency sohealers can have fun too

[technole]

Blood lily is nowhere near as good as foul. You get foul every 30 seconds and its not conditional at all on the incompetence of your party members or tanks taking damage. Just based on your own ability to cast 2 spells within 30 seconds

I don't believe gravity had a slow? Unless it was pvp. I do remember it having decent damage of 250+20% less for all others back in HW which meant you could use it as a dps burst with lightspeed because it was better than malefic at the cost of being hideously expensive mp wise and slow cast time, both of which lightspeed fixed for its duration.

I completely agree with all points though, healers should not have lost all this stuff. We have to dps too, how else are we supposed to clear the msq? our damage shouldn't be this pitiful either, 140 potency is a tickle with current mob hp.

Please return Aero 3 with complimentary water magic, cards and time magic, dots+bane+shadowflare+fester and some actual potency sohealers can have fun too

Malefic was at it's lowest point in 4.0, killing any story mob even in HW BiS 270 gear early on was a slog. That was part of the reason of the potency buff as we got through 4.x series, and of course the 1.5s cast to allow card weaving.

Gravity never had anything attached to it in PvE, and it requires a target which is also makes it more watered down than Holy.

Foul is dramatically better. Most players don't know that WHM Misery is only a partial "refund" for the lost DPS of using lilies and that 4 glares is more damage. The only way to ever really get ahead is using lilies during downtime, or getting the not always applicable fat return on AoE.

Glare + Glare + Glare + Glare = 1200p
Rapture + Rapture + Rapture + Misery = 900p


I do miss Aero 3, but this removal was aligned with the 2nd DoT removal on all healers. We all remember when they went too far and removed Miasma 2 on Scholar because they removed it's last AoE. Only to have to return it in a patch in the form of Art of War, or what I call pounding sand for the boring DPS it does now.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Foul is dramatically better. Most players don't know that WHM Misery is only a partial "refund" for the lost DPS of using lilies and that 4 glares is more damage. The only way to ever really get ahead is using lilies during downtime, or getting the not always applicable fat return on AoE.

Glare + Glare + Glare + Glare = 1200p
Rapture + Rapture + Rapture + Misery = 900p

Which is a sign that the player perspective and the designer perspective are very different. Misery isn't supposed to be replacing 4 Glares, it is supposed to be a once every ~90 seconds x3 potency no MP cost Super Glare reward for using 3 of your once per 30s instant cast no MP cost Cure IIs/Medicas.

WHM's intended design seems to be built around maintaining an average single target HpS with Procs and Lilies upgrading Cure Is and Medicas to more powerful versions which create gaps to be filled by single casts of Glare(one of which is upgraded to Misery every 90s).

It is similar to how Benediction is intended to be used as an Emergency Full Heal button but tends to be more used as a way to quickly recover after spamming a bunch of Glares/Holies due to fights lasting long enough that it comes off cooldown multiple times in the fight.

[technole]

Which is a sign that the player perspective and the designer perspective are very different. Misery isn't supposed to be replacing 4 Glares, it is supposed to be a once every ~90 seconds x3 potency no MP cost Super Glare reward for using 3 of your once per 30s instant cast no MP cost Cure IIs/Medicas.

WHM's intended design seems to be built around maintaining an average single target HpS with Procs and Lilies upgrading Cure Is and Medicas to more powerful versions which create gaps to be filled by single casts of Glare(one of which is upgraded to Misery every 90s).

It is similar to how Benediction is intended to be used as an Emergency Full Heal button but tends to be more used as a way to quickly recover after spamming a bunch of Glares/Holies due to fights lasting long enough that it comes off cooldown multiple times in the fight.

Incorrect. Benediction has never been intended for emergencies only in this game, ever. The animation delay is still there to this day and if you use it solely for that reason you'll lose many casts. It was always meant to align with tank buster mechanics. Case in-point, Eden's Promise E12S Savage. Both tanks get the buster at the same time and have to perform the tank swap because of the opposite debuffs. Tank one is likely to use several CDs, and other should be using going immunity. I always Bene the Gunbreaker in this opener and use Benison refresh and Tetra on the Dark Knight. The Dark Knight will use their immunity, Living Dead for the 2nd buster later in the fight and Bene is back up for it.

The original 4.0 Lily design was such as disaster because casting Cure/II is not nominal. Lilies today are able to be used for healing-on-the-move mechanics because WHM has the least mobility in this game, not BLM. In Savage you don't have to heal all damage right away, it can delayed to weave from movement and this is where it's nominal instead of casting Medica IIs. Damage goes off, stand there and finish the Glares, then move into your clock position(s) for the next mechanics while weave the lily heal. You can actually get Misery gain in a fight like E11S because of all the healer movement and downtime.

[Packetdancer]

It is similar to how Benediction is intended to be used as an Emergency Full Heal button but tends to be more used as a way to quickly recover after spamming a bunch of Glares/Holies due to fights lasting long enough that it comes off cooldown multiple times in the fight.

Benediction may often get used as an Emergency Full Heal button, but I would argue that's not its most optimal use (and I suspect not the intended use). In casual content in particular, I will frequently allow a tank drop to 20% health or so while doing damage or whatever, then hit them with a Benediction in order to top them off. That lets me use one oGCD to heal them to full, rather than using, say, three GCDs (three lilies), or two GCDs (lilies) and an oGCD (Tetra), or whatever. It's vastly more efficient -- especially since when I play WHM my oGCD healing options are considerably more limited than when I play, say, AST. As WHM I've got basically three immediate healing options for oGCD (Tetra, Benediction, and Assize), four if you count Divine Benison's shield as healing, and one of those (Assize) is really more a damage ability with a convenient healing side-effect.

Plus, if I reserve Benediction as only an emergency panic button, 95% of the time I will never end up using it at all during a run.

Lilies today are able to be used for healing-on-the-move mechanics because WHM has the least mobility in this game, not BLM.

*quietly sneaks over to BLM, casts Respose to knock them out, steals Triplecast, flees the scene*

[Ultimatecalibur]

Incorrect. Benediction has never been intended for emergencies only in this game, ever. The animation delay is still there to this day and if you use it solely for that reason you'll lose many casts. It was always meant to align with tank buster mechanics. Case in-point, Eden's Promise E12S Savage. Both tanks get the buster at the same time and have to perform the tank swap because of the opposite debuffs. Tank one is likely to use several CDs, and other should be using going immunity. I always Bene the Gunbreaker in this opener and use Benison refresh and Tetra on the Dark Knight. The Dark Knight will use their immunity, Living Dead for the 2nd buster later in the fight and Bene is back up for it.

Way back in ARR, Tankbusters came out a lot more often (some as often as every 30s) and Benediction was on a 300s (6 min) cooldown. It was more or less an emergency button and you could use it on average two times a fight at most. Tanks were also expected to swap roughly every 2 to 2.5 minutes in high end due to only having 3 mitigation cooldowns. This was also a time when WHM risked going OoM when sustained healing with Cure I, BRDs were needed during raids for TP and MP recovery and attacks could randomly Crit forcing Tanks to be topped off most of the time.

Fight design has changed so that most damage is avoidable and tankbusters are once every few minutes, Crits on most attacks have been removed, Benediction's cooldown has been halved and all cooldowns reset after a wipe.

Benediction started out as the WHM emergency button, but now has become one of the WHM's primary healing abilities due in part to a reduced cooldown length and lowered healing requirements.

The original 4.0 Lily design was such as disaster because casting Cure/II is not nominal. Lilies today are able to be used for healing-on-the-move mechanics because WHM has the least mobility in this game, not BLM. In Savage you don't have to heal all damage right away, it can delayed to weave from movement and this is where it's nominal instead of casting Medica IIs. Damage goes off, stand there and finish the Glares, then move into your clock position(s) for the next mechanics while weave the lily heal. You can actually get Misery gain in a fight like E11S because of all the healer movement and downtime.

Which is due to Fight Design and Job Design not aligning. Lilies were originally designed under the assumption that fights needed constant sustained gcd healing with ogcds being interwovent to cover the HpS deficit caused by increased incoming damage which would have been fine if fights required sustained healing of the level. Fights on the other hand had very spike heavy damage patterns which were coverable with ogcds, Shields, Regens and the occasional Cure 2 equivalent. The original Lilies were less relevant the fewer Cures a WHM casts and the player base figured that they didn't need any to clear content.
Also a lot of the movement troubles and lack of weaving windows that the WHM suffers from is due to Glare's 2.5s cast time which leaves no time between gcds. Where as Cure's 1.5s and Cure 2's 2s cast times leave a fair amount of time for weaving between gcds.

Benediction may often get used as an Emergency Full Heal button, but I would argue that's not its most optimal use (and I suspect not the intended use). In casual content in particular, I will frequently allow a tank drop to 20% health or so while doing damage or whatever, then hit them with a Benediction in order to top them off. That lets me use one oGCD to heal them to full, rather than using, say, three GCDs (three lilies), or two GCDs (lilies) and an oGCD (Tetra), or whatever. It's vastly more efficient -- especially since when I play WHM my oGCD healing options are considerably more limited than when I play, say, AST. As WHM I've got basically three immediate healing options for oGCD (Tetra, Benediction, and Assize), four if you count Divine Benison's shield as healing,

Not arguing that Benediction isn't being put to good, proper or optimal use. Just that usage has changed from the intended form over the game's lifetime.

"Optimal use" and "Intended use" tend to be vastly different. Abilities the devs think of as mostly Emergency buttons and design fights assuming that they are not used often get messed up when players find optimization strats that use them. It often feels like the devs forget that the tanks each has an Invuln that can cheese mechanics.

and one of those (Assize) is really more a damage ability with a convenient healing side-effect.

Assize started out more as a once every 90s MP recovery tool that would also heal and deal damage.

Plus, if I reserve Benediction as only an emergency panic button, 95% of the time I will never end up using it at all during a run.

There is a phrase “It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.” The devs seem to design the jobs with this mentality.