Where to go with the Lily Gauge

[Semirhage]

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.

Yeah, though most of that optimization only really matters in Savage. In your daily Expert roulette the party's half HP can wait for the next Assize damage window 20 seconds from now instead of wasting time on a Rapture or a Medica 2. Difficulty below Savage is why I hate the Shadowbringers lilies. They're a step up from Stormblood to be sure, but their damage reward system in content that doesn't require more than oGCD healing awkwardly encourages you to dump three lilies healing full HP party members between pulls just to force a blood lily.

[Acece]

I think the lilly system is ok honestly. adding a dps dump will make so we never heal. Whm really needs some healing that isn't a damage loss, maybe adding a ogcd that converts x% of damage into healing would be good (though we need more weave spaces).

[Shurrikhan]

...

While all this would be an improvement over the original suggestion, I think it's worth asking what, generally, we even want from the Lily Gauge as a mechanic.

At present we have Cure-II-but-on-a-shared-30s-CD, Medica-but-on-a-shared-30s-CD, and a offensive potency refunder (currently at 25 potency loss per heal, available per 3 Lily actions).

Is it, for instance, really worth adding a Blood Lily action that requires only a single Lily's use... when we could just have Misery scale granularly? (I.e., Blood Lilies activate per Lily use, with Misery's potency increasing per available Lily (2 Glare's worth, 3 Glare's worth, 4 Glare's worth?)

Similarly, if we really need more weave space, mightn't that call for simply not having so damn long a DoT, or simply moving either Divine Benison or Assize over to the GCD at increased potency (or frequency, such as to 30s, in Assize's case, since it'd be use-on-CD either way)?

Do we really need to load up a refund system with options B, C, D, E when just letting option A scale more intuitively would fill each of those purposes?

Now, if the playflow itself is super compelling, that's a different story, but then... why bottleneck that whole vein of mechanics to after level 74?

[P0W3RK1D]

I would say, give the WHM more options for spending the blood lilly finishing move such as

-a 10 second single target re-raise ward
-Holy V
-an Aoe benediction
-Protectura
-Mini (makes enemy smaller and weaker)

[Semirhage]

Awesome and useful as I think Reraise would be, I doubt we'll ever see it in non-side content. It's got too much potential to cheese their precisely scripted encounters with instakill failure states.

[Kabooa]

While all this would be an improvement over the original suggestion, I think it's worth asking what, generally, we even want from the Lily Gauge as a mechanic.

Now, if the playflow itself is super compelling, that's a different story, but then... why bottleneck that whole vein of mechanics to after level 74?

I don't make the rules, is the simple answer. I would introduce them earlier, but I generally work within the constraint of the thread topic.

As far as just scaling up misery, it does nothing on its own to address play issues, and while we -can- adjust the play issues separately, there's little reason not to hit them all at once, so to speak.

Part of the problem with dealing with the "DPS Neutral" angle is that it's not technically neutral. I don't so much like working within that constraint of the 100% uptime vacuum, but it's the easiest to work with since its the one everyone subscribes to.

Lets say you have 10 gcds to spend. If we set Misery to be 300 + 300 for every Blood Lily consume, then you have

300 x 6, 0 x 3, + 1200. 3000 potency. "Neutral."

If at any point prior to this you can "Prep" it, during a transition phase, you instead have

300 x 9 + 1200. 3900 potency.

The end result is much the same to what we have now. You gain more by spending them in a dead window so you can keep casting glares. Part of the reason I suggested the change to Gladioulus is, in part, to discourage that. You still probably -can- do it at some points. That's a timer issue that'd need to be shortened, but you must spend the Lily first, use Gladioulous after, and then take advantage of your potency bonus.

This is a decision - Whether or not everyone finds it a pleasing one, I can't say. Simply giving Misery the 'DPS Neutral" potency boost doesn't actually change how we would use Lilies, because we already use the 'penalized' version in a manner to get a gain. So we'd just get an even bigger gain for doing the same thing.

Incorporating it into active priority use does. In return for using the Lily, you get an additional Weave and Movement window. And upon utilizing that, you get the opportunity for potency return. This option would be independent of SE having to significantly change its encounter design, so in my opinion it hits the notes we'd (Or rather, what I think we'd) want to see from them.

As far as the options for using the Lily, I also offered a particular type of heal we haven't seen yet in the form of a Pick-up. The targeting of it will need some tweaks, but there's quite a few scenarios I can think of that pre-placing a heal Pick-Up would be quite useful. In this regard, I would have to insist that all "Blue" Lily options have to remain healing options. The Heal <> Damage GCD cost interchangeability is built on this. The current implementation of Lilies is currently the curing with one hand, culling with the other, so any and all expansions must follow this.

You Cure [Blue] to Cull [Red]. Red option expansions likely necessitate more rapid Blue expenditure, unless we have some truly redonkouluos things like a 3 minute DoT or less interesting options like "Single target misery"

[Baxcel]

I'm more of a tank main but i have been playing WHT in Bozja content a lot recently and I agree we need more with the lilies..

Not sure if it's a popular opinion but I think we should see a change to the current 3 Lilly skills we have.. make them oGCD for starters but add a new feature to the Guage where in that as a Lilly sits it changes colors.. going from white to yellow to orange and finally black.. giving a new skill to the WHTs where you can spend the Lilly as a GCD for damage based on the color of the Lilly but white isn't usable for the skill... so the WHT still has to use up the oGCD heals to get to his color changed lillies.. for the damage skill.. make the black lillies give a damage buff to the blood Lilly spender but they don't nourish the blood Lilly themselves. And maybe if you don't spend a black Lilly by 30seconds it dies off having to regrow from white moving the current lillies down a slot on the Guage?

Example:

Trait
Garden of Eden
Lillies will now grow older as they rest, changing color from white to yellow to orange to black, every 30sec. Lillie will die off naturally if not used 30sec after turning black.

Skill

Eden's Mourn
Spend colored lillies as damage to the enemy. Potency based on color of the Lilly.(single target)
Yellow- 150 potency
Orange - 300 potency
Black - 600 potency
Spending of black Lilly adds a 10sec buff to next Afflatus Misery increasing potency to 1000 or 1500?(not sure on damage yet)

Basically you'd have to spend the lillies on healing to get your blood Lilly and to reach your black lillies before they die you'd need to spend a white Lilly and an orange or else the Guage would tick giving you a new white Lilly and deleting the old black as the colors updated.

This would give incentive to spend the lillies on healing and damage and moving the healing as oGCD would keep the WHT damage up from glare or spending of colored lillies.

[MintnHoney]

I would like to see them continue with the train of thought pertaining to growing lilies. For example:

When a Blood Lily blooms (or when consumed, whatever is easier to process), it generates 1-3 seeds: for each seed, you may sow the seeds of life (OGCD Ability) into either an enemy or an ally.
The seed of a Blood Lily is nourished by either health regeneration or damage over time abilities. Once the blood lily has reached a threshold of health regenerated or damage dealt over time, the seed will blossom for additional effects (either healing in a small burst AoE, or damage dealt in a small burst AoE, based upon which target had seeds sown into them). Seeds may blossom immediately by using Fluid Aura on the target. If the target is defeated before the seed of life blossoms, the seed dies, negating the effects.

With which, I suppose you'd need to gain a trait which allows the WHM to target allies with Fluid Aura.

[Manuka]

Personally I think they should expand the lily system to encompass all of their GCDs in a way that promotes synergy between the DPS and healing halves of the kit. The easiest way to do that would be to simply expand blood lily gain to all healing GCDs and build the afflatus system around the whole kit. So instead of having two separate lily skills that are just an instant basic heal, change it to where having a lily upgrades all heals to an afflatus counterpart. For the afflatus skills, reduce the global recast time down to 1.5secs. With that change it effectively makes Misery a very slight gain (1.5 x 3 + 2.5(misery) + 2.5(glare) = 9.5secs). Lastly, attach a simple gimmick to their filler that increases lily gain by 1 sec.

With those changes you end up with a positive feedback loop between the whole kit. Do damage to generate lilies faster so you can cast afflatus heals more frequently to feed the blood lily at no cost. It maintains the simplicity of the current system but adds a layer of optimization that rewards you for planning out your lily usage so you don't suffer a penalty using a basic heal. WHM has always been the 'GCD bound' healer and has always suffered for it since it heavily conflicts with the way healers are expected to play. At least with the changes above it maintains that playstyle but removes the steep cost for using your skills.

Also, they really should split Assize in two. Make it a flat 400pot attack that grants a 20sec buff that allows you to do a second 'Encore Assize' that heals for 400pot. Gives you a window to actually use the healing portion without relying on lucky mechanic overlaps.

[Shurrikhan]

So instead of having two separate lily skills that are just an instant basic heal, change it to where having a lily upgrades all heals to an afflatus counterpart.

Does sound nicely button-efficient, but the action to upgrade the following heal (old Dark Arts style, almost) to an instant cast Afflatus equivalent would have to have no player animation, else it'd need a weave space just to give a weave space.