Where to go with the Lily Gauge

[Liam_Harper]

I don't like the idea of having a lily spender on WHM. It feels like a cheap copy of SCH and I don't want the healers to feel even more similiar. Instead I would rather have a trait that makes it worthwhile to hold lilies. Let's say maybe a 2% spellspeed increase for each lily in your possession so 4% with two lilies and 6% with all three. This way holding the lilies is beneficial and allows them to be there for healing Emergencies without having such a huge benefit it feels risky to actually use them.

So, the optimal way to play WHM would be to sit on 3 lilies for the whole fight, reducing weave and movement even further and dump all the healing on the AST. Sound fun.

[ty_taurus]

So, the optimal way to play WHM would be to sit on 3 lilies for the whole fight, reducing weave and movement even further and dump all the healing on the AST. Sound fun.

I agree, I think this concept just perpetuates everything we hate about the current healers. Here are some cool tools that aren't ever worth using unless you like intentionally losing DPS. Have you tried casting Glare 14 times instead?

[Almagnus1]

I agree, I think this concept just perpetuates everything we hate about the current healers. Here are some cool tools that aren't ever worth using unless you like intentionally losing DPS. Have you tried casting Glare 14 times instead?

I wonder if we had someone bribe Yoshi-P into playing a healer if we'd see some changes for the good with how the healers play.

[Bobsmiaw]

Maybe add something similar to BLM tripple cast?
1 lily exchange for 2 stack of rapid cast, and still feed the blood lily
So 2x Instant cast for most spell glare/holy/cure1-2-3/medica1-2.
At least it will help reduce whm issue with movement.

[dvoraen]

My thoughts on the Healing/Lily Gauge are pretty much twofold:

- One, we need a healing lily spender or two, likely as utility, that nourishes the blood lily.
- Two, have more interaction with the Healing Gauge than "wait for it to fill".

One is pretty straightforward and has been discussed, so I'll talk more about Two.

One of the biggest design mistakes I think have been made with the job gauges is that some of them are not very interactive. In the case of the Healing Gauge, all you have to do is survive in combat for 30s to make use of it. Nothing you do directly leads to the acquisition of (non-blood) Lilies. There is no reward for your gameplay as a white mage as far as a Lily is concerned; it builds up on its own whether you just stand there or are actively contributing to the fight.

Because of this, I think a redesign of the Healing Gauge is in order. I don't think it needs a complete overhaul, but rather change the principles a little:

- Lilies now 'nourish' after 10 seconds in combat.
- Lilies fully bloom after they nourish three times; a Lily fully blooms after 30 seconds (no change here)
- Add traits that grant the chance (or guarantee) to nourish a Lily to various actions. For example, Cure and Cure II could 'proc' a nourish, speeding up the Healing Gauge.

This type of design would reward healing gameplay (which seems appropriate considering it's called the Healing Gauge), and would open the door to a variety of effects for white mages. I list some examples below as proof of concept:

Secret of the Lily II (Trait)
Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture have a 50% chance to nourish a Lily (after expending one).

Bloom (Trait)
Increases the chance to nourish a Lily to 100% for 6s after using Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture.

Bloodbloom (Trait)
Grants a 25% chance to nourish the Blood Lily when a Lily is nourished while under the effect of Bloom.

[Semirhage]

I would make some huge fundamental changes to how Cure and Cure 2 work before I'd ever attach a job gauge to them. They're the least useful abilities in the entire healing kit by a country mile. I personally prefer job mechanics that push the skill ceiling upward instead of acting as a booster for falling behind.

[GrimGale]

I'd love for WHM to have their lily gauge tied to the ABC, always be casting. That's why I think having WHM be a parallel to BLM in terms of mechanics could be a good thing.

Some sort of Enochian for WHM that improves both their damage (By unlocking powerful but slow light-based spells) and healing by speeding up the generation of lillies. Casting Aflatus abilities could be their refresh for their Enochian.

I'd give WHM some mobility skills too to compensate for long cast times and a way to spend lillies outside of healing.

[NYCLouisGamer]

I would make some huge fundamental changes to how Cure and Cure 2 work before I'd ever attach a job gauge to them. They're the least useful abilities in the entire healing kit by a country mile. I personally prefer job mechanics that push the skill ceiling upward instead of acting as a booster for falling behind.

But Cure is a simple healing spell. Is there anything that you can really do with it? What else would possibly replace it at low levels?

[Semirhage]

But Cure is a simple healing spell. Is there anything that you can really do with it? What else would possibly replace it at low levels?

That's up to job designers to determine something that works. What I know is what *doesn't* work. Systems are as good as the gameplay they reward and the gameplay they encourage. Not only the baseline of what they do. Take Stormblood lilies for example. The gameplay they rewarded and encouraged was Cure spamming. That's just about the furthest thing from skilled use of the WHM healing kit- the whole system promoted playing like an overwhelmed level 15 player. Take Enochian as a different example. It encourages balancing high damage output with keeping the timer going, and rewards you with a ton of extra damage for doing so. If it were designed as badly as Stormblood lilies were, it would instead do something like "makes Scathe do 50% more damage". It'd be a nonsense ability with a tooltip that tried to trick you into using the weakest skill in your kit instead of rewarding you for making smart decisions.

Any suggestion that encourages spamming Cure and Cure 2 without first doing something that makes them no longer the Scathe of the WHM kit is a dead end. FFXIV is first and foremost a game that prizes damage output above all other metrics. Cure and Cure 2 would need to have traits that refunded a boatload of damage (like increasing the potency of the next attack spell) to make them more attractive than any other ability in the lineup. I'd be careful making it a damage gain though. That's just going to encourage more overhealing. WHM needs no help in that department. Elevating Cure/2 from "horrible last resort" to "actually attractive option" isn't impossible though. Again, I say look at BLM. Fire still sees use at level 80. Yes it's lower damage than Fire 4, but the overall damage you gain from using it to reset the timer makes it worth casting. One of the most unfortunate realities of the healing kits is, they lack interesting decision-making. They follow a loose descending priority order based on how much damage you lose from using them, and in the places you *do* have options they're not interesting ones. You're not deciding "oo, if I use Tetra it may extend my lightblast timer, but if I use Benediction it gives me stacks of whatsitcalled", they just do practically the same thing and it doesn't really matter which one you pick.

[ty_taurus]

Ultimately, WHM's GCD healing options have a lot of overlap which actually makes it more confusing to figure out which healing spells are most optimal for a casual audience. This includes the lilies as well, as the HP you get from them isn't as good as Regen or Medica II, so when is the right time to use them? I think this actually makes WHM harder to master than you'd think because the lines between certain spells are blurry, and other spells like Cure are a trap that feel designed to trick you into underperforming.