Giving Whm an identity

[Roeshel]

Relying on oGCDs is. Not. An. Identity. Being braindead is not an identity either.

WHM currently has GCDs tied to resources. And if they didn't lose any potency they would have been just as good as an ogcd, even better since you would get the time needed to weave 2 additional oGCDs after using a lily. It is not like the current design is a complete failure, small adjustments need to be made to enable whms to play optimally.

What I mean by small adjustments is removing the dps loss from using a lily and maybe change benison so that it nourishes the gauge and gives one lily per cast. It is a water spell, after all, it's kinda thematic if you ask me. The same thing could be done for fluid Aura so that it stays relevant. Kinda like how Ninja's Mug Shot is relevant because it charges up the ninja Ninki Gauge despite it dealing almost no dps.

Revamp plenary. Make it a gcd spell that consumes a lily because most of my clipping comes from wanting to activate plenary before using afflatus rapture. It will be a gcd but it will have its own recast timer for balance purposes something like gnb's dot. Also, change what it does because to get the most value out of that spell right you will just end up overhealing. Maybe instead of having the 200/400/600/800 cure potency healed right now, they can be stored up for the second AoE. Or you know, it can just become a party-wide regen healing spell that comes with no dps loss kinda like Ast's Celestial Opposition.

Make Tetra a dps neutral water regen ogcd and make it charge up the lilies. You already have 700 neutral cure potency from Afflatus Solace.

Make Thin Air interact with your lily gauge. Instead of nullifying mp requirements for gcd heals make it so that it allows for the execution of lily spells without consuming a lily.

Last but not least, introduce the lily system at level 30, when you become a white mage. Ast and SCH both have their gauges before level 50. Also, remove the passive charging of the lily gauge. You already have 3 ogcds from which you get lilies. You need to start pressing your buttons to have access to your whole kit, just like sch and ast. At level 30 you get Presence of mind as well, so this would be a great way to make that ability interact with your lily gauge. It can be smth like a party-wide that is unlocked only if you have 3 lilies stored.

Now adjust all of the cure and damage potencies so that the class is balanced.

This is the kind of change I would like to see for whm. It still remains a gcd healer which is its identity. The changes I proposed are not that big in my opinion. They are only expanding on what is already there and making different abilities interact with one another so that the person playing the role gets the sense that the skills are not randomly put in the whm's kit.

[Shurrikhan]

WHM currently has GCDs tied to resources. And if they didn't lose any potency they would have been just as good as an ogcd, even better since you would get the time needed to weave 2 additional oGCDs after using a lily.

Okay, yes, objectively true, so long as there aren't additional dependent opportunities attached to the GCDs in necessary (uptime-)conflict with those (e.g. Lily) GCDs.

maybe change benison so that it nourishes the gauge and gives one lily per cast.

You're talking about literally doubling their Lily generation, allowing for a Misery every 30 or 60 seconds, cycling (or, at an average of 45s; split the cake as you like).

Make it a gcd spell that consumes a lily because most of my clipping comes from wanting to activate plenary before using afflatus rapture.

So long as it feeds the Blood Lily. Moreover, you could just have it go back to an earlier design, whereby it's automatically charged by the number of AoE spells cast in the last 10 seconds for follow-up potency, rather than frontloading added potency to each.

Make Tetra a dps neutral water regen ogcd and make it charge up the lilies.

And with that we're now 8 Lilies generated per 90 seconds, up from 3. Or, a Misery available per ~34 seconds...

Make Thin Air interact with your lily gauge. Instead of nullifying mp requirements for gcd heals make it so that it allows for the execution of lily spells without consuming a lily.

Not an outright horrible idea, but I don't see the need for Lightspeed(-but-better-except-in-that-it-can't-be-used-to-DPS-and-actually-forces-delay-in-Misery-casts). By the time you've that kind of resource, it just adds to WHM's historic problem: overhealing. What use is all that weave-space if the weave-space can only be spent on heals, and you're already trucking the meters?

Last but not least, introduce the lily system at level 30, when you become a white mage. Ast and SCH both have their gauges before level 50.

AST and SCH primary gauges (Cards and Aetherflow) also have -- or at least use to have -- useful, choiceful, and thematic utility attached, rather than just an extra-Swiftcast-but-limited-to-heals-and-eventually-made-to-refund-offensive-uptime-costs system that's clearly been tacked on in a non-integral fashion. Let's not call the deer, the deer, and the deer-bits-a-week-since-run-over equally venison here.

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While I agree with you that Lilies are not a terrible design, I agree with Rilifane that what you seem here to take as a sufficient center for a job's identity... isn't even close to sufficient.

[Roeshel]

And with that we're now 8 Lilies generated per 90 seconds, up from 3. Or, a Misery available per ~34 seconds...

My idea was to have only 5 lilies per minute. This is how much you get if the passive charging of the lily gauge is removed. Benison and Fluid have 30s cd, tetra 1min. So you get 5 lilies per minute which is more than twice as much from what we have now. And misery could be adjusted to be available after 5 lily casts. I really think that whm needs more lilies for movement. Like, right before a mechanic you are going to heal up your main tank + move where you need to be. Then you use your lilies for aoe heal and then save up misery for extra movement or weaving option while you charge up your lilies.

Whm gets a lot of free healing with so many lilies but it doesn't mean that they are going to be overhealing. The potencies just need to be adjusted so that it plays out better. Utilizing your resources should be required to optimize your dps output and avoid the casting of Medica II or Cure III. These should be emergency heals, at least for savage.

Tbh, my idea was for thin air to be kinda like lightspeed for movement purposes. But it doesn't have to be like that. It can be something that augments the next cast of each lily spells. For example, Augmented afflatus solace could be a ST spell that grants a buff to all healing received to the target you've healed for a set amount of time, which is smth that can be prolonged by subsequent use of afflatus solace on the same target but if the buff runs out you will need to wait till you can use thin air again. Augmented afflatus rapture could grant a party-wide buff. It's named "Rapture" after all. After using thin air, your party members obtain the rapture buff which will transform into one of these three buffs - damage dealt buff/damage reduction buff/regen effect. It can be made so that it gives different buffs in different scenarios. For example:

Solace - Plenary - Rapture / Plenary - Solace - Rapture = damage reduction buff

Plenary - Rapture - Solace / Rapture - Plenary - Solace = party regen effect

Rapture - Solace - Plenary / Solace - Rapture - Plenary = damage increase buff

It can be also made that the rapture buff is activated only after you've used misery. So you would have like a 10sec window to figure out which buff you want, do the rotation and then use misery to activate the buff. If you don't use misery the buff will not get activated. And if you do the rotation wrong where you've used the same lily spell twice before finishing your augmented lily casts you get no buff.

The damage increase seems like the best choice in most cases which is true. But having an additional damage reduction as an option while progging is just as good. The regen option is when a lot of healing is needed, but you don't want to resort to using Medica II and Cure III.

Augmented plenary could give 50% of the stored cure potency as additional max hp while the buff lasts. Some savage raids have some very hard-hitting aoes and the most common way to survive them is to just shield + mitigate. Increasing max hp could be whm's way to keep the party alive. Also, Plenary could be made so that it synergies with misery. It could be made so that you get 500 cure potency stored when you use misery and 100 from each rapture. I think this way ppl won't be pressured into overhealing healing to get good value out of plenary.

So thin air could be something like: "Augments the next cast of Afflatus Solace, Plenary Indulgence and Afflatus Rapture"

[Shurrikhan]

My idea was to have only 5 lilies per minute. This is how much you get if the passive charging of the lily gauge is removed. Benison and Fluid have 30s cd, tetra 1min. So you get 5 lilies per minute which is more than twice as much from what we have now.

And with that, Benison becomes even less able to be held for when you may actually need a shield. Unless ALL shields are being removed from "pure"/"HoT" healers, you should probably assume that at least in Savage content there may be some need for a shield... to be used as an actual max eHP increase, rather than mere oGCD throughput.

Binding generation to Benison would further increase any opportunity costs for using it as an actual shield. I'd really rather not.

Solace - Plenary - Rapture / Plenary - Solace - Rapture = damage reduction buff

Plenary - Rapture - Solace / Rapture - Plenary - Solace = party regen effect

Rapture - Solace - Plenary / Solace - Rapture - Plenary = damage increase buff

Assuming your Plenary would be an oGCD, it has the prior weave issue, but I otherwise don't hate this. That said, it still seems like you're lavishing inordinate attention upon decoration for a rat-eaten cake. Where's the actual fundamental identity? Let's get that first before we push out the possibilities for the actual meat of the job just to bake a little more flavor into its whip cream.

Scholar's Aetherpool at this point is a bad enough example of an integral mechanic, and it'd still be better than what seems possible from or for Lilies as a similarly time- or cast-afforded resource system with specific spenders without solely stepping on its toes and/or trying to undo its past mistakes to make WHM a better SCH than SCH.

[Roeshel]

And with that, Benison becomes even less able to be held for when you may actually need a shield. Unless ALL shields are being removed from "pure"/"HoT" healers, you should probably assume that at least in Savage content there may be some need for a shield... to be used as an actual max eHP increase, rather than mere oGCD throughput.

Binding generation to Benison would further increase any opportunity costs for using it as an actual shield. I'd really rather not.



Assuming your Plenary would be an oGCD, it has the prior weave issue, but I otherwise don't hate this. That said, it still seems like you're lavishing inordinate attention upon decoration for a rat-eaten cake. Where's the actual fundamental identity? Let's get that first before we push out the possibilities for the actual meat of the job just to bake a little more flavor into its whip cream.

Scholar's Aetherpool at this point is a bad enough example of an integral mechanic, and it'd still be better than what seems possible from or for Lilies as a similarly time- or cast-afforded resource system with specific spenders without solely stepping on its toes and/or trying to undo its past mistakes to make WHM a better SCH than SCH.

Aren't the lilies not enough? Ast has cards, sch has fairy and whm gets white lilies behind which party buffs and utility are locked. What kind of identity do you propose for whm? I don't expect a complete revamp of the class, that would be the same as making another class.

Plenary is lily consuming GCD.

Benison in savage is used 99% of the cases on the tanks and if it was a pure heal it wouldn't have mattered much. And outside of savage there aren't many aoe that would kill you if you are on full hp but you are not shielded so where would you need that shield saved for? In savage, there is some need for shields but the shields need to be party-wide, not single-target, so benison is completely useless in that aspect already. I mean, I am rarely using it outside tankbusters because there is just no reason to use it, unless the tank's hp drops below 40% - 30%hp. I don't have many weave windows so using benison as an oGCD is my last priority. Giving whm-s an incentive to use that ogcd is how you get ppl to use it to optimize their gameplay.

[Shurrikhan]

Plenary is lily consuming GCD.

Then your

Solace - Plenary - Rapture / Plenary - Solace - Rapture = damage reduction buff

Plenary - Rapture - Solace / Rapture - Plenary - Solace = party regen effect

Rapture - Solace - Plenary / Solace - Rapture - Plenary = damage increase buff

WHM-jutsu would take up to 5 GCDs to set up. There's a reason all but one shield in the game is instant and all percentile mitigation is oGCD.

Aren't the lilies not enough?

Short answer: No.

I don't expect a complete revamp of the class, that would be the same as making another class.

I'd prefer that over a gutless one, if that ultimatum were a real one.

Giving whm-s an incentive to use that ogcd is how you get ppl to use it to optimize their gameplay.

Using a skill even more rigidly on-CD is not "getting people to optimize" it. You've removed what little skill ceiling remains to it.

What kind of identity do you propose for whm?

Off the top of my head, one that builds solidly off its Conjurer roots, with White Magic seeming a logical extension thereof and capitalization thereupon.

[Roeshel]

Then your

WHM-jutsu would take up to 5 GCDs to set up. There's a reason all but one shield in the game is instant and all percentile mitigation is oGCD.

Yes, you need to know what you are doing. This is complexity.

There's a reason all but one shield in the game is instant and all percentile mitigation is oGCD.

Percentile mitigation being ogcd is just making it straight easier to use. The fights are scripted to the last second so managing 3gcds in advance is not that hard. All of the relativity casts of the raid boss with the hardest hitting AoE have 10 sec cast timers. You can cast 4 gcds before the boss has finished casting its raid-wide.

Also, whm does need an additional source of lily generation, 2 per minute is simply insufficient because you need to use some lilies for st healing as well. Forget about the 75 dps loss, whm currently doesn't have enough tools to heal with when healing is required outside casting medica II. You need more lilies.

Benison has no skill ceiling. It doesn't interact with your other spells in any way. It is literally a random spell given to whm with water effects. It barely does anything useful. I don't understand the logic behind not using it because you want to save it for some nonexistent scenario where shields on a single target are required. Ast cards are draw on-CD, does that mean that their skill ceiling is removed. Benison could be an ogcd that simply charges the lilies without the shield effect if you don't like it so much being used on-CD. In any case, whm needs a lot more lilies to be able to be as fluid as water(conjuerer roots) in savage.

And personally, I preferred that Aero had a shorter refresh timer. You get to move more often and weave more. So I definitely support the idea of conjurer roots. If dia turns into a tornado or smth like that with a short but strong dot duration it would be very nice. As for the earth element idk, I like glare more than Stone I, II, III, IV. Maybe they can give us some earth-related spell or ogcd in endwalker.

[Shurrikhan]

Yes, you need to know what you are doing. This is complexity.

Complexity does not require ridiculously low responsiveness. Look at Ninja. It takes at most 1.5 seconds to prep any of various casts, not your 12.5 seconds.

[Roeshel]

Complexity does not require ridiculously low responsiveness. Look at Ninja. It takes at most 1.5 seconds to prep any of various casts, not your 12.5 seconds.

Yeah but whm is not a ninja. Also, ninja is not the only class in existence where you need to press a different set of the same abilities to get a different result. Ninja is all about doing dmg And mine is 3gcd of healing spells and 1 of offensive. All of them are instant, so you can complete the combo in less than 7.5secs. You need to make sure that you've already used 2 lilies spells before using thin air. It's not too much to ask, considering you can get a party-wide damage buff, ast has to make sure they have 3 different seals aligned as well. It's not like you are not responsive, like, literally the places where damage reduction is needed to survive can be counted on one hand and most of them require a tank to use lb3, not your sch or ast you use SS or CU respectively. Basic, Intermediate, Advanced and Terminal Relativity all are with a long cast time and are two minutes apart so that everyone can prepare for the big boom, even though all of the damage reduction abilities are instant oGCDs. It doesn't matter. The game is already designed in a way to give you sufficient time to use mitigation when such is actually needed.

Also, considering the fact that thin air will have 2 or 3 minutes cd, this won't be something that you can be constantly doing, unlike ninja. And since people like higher rdps they would in most cases just use it for the damage buff. The max hp increase from plenary + temprance already brings enough utility from a single healer for hard hitting AoEs.

[Shurrikhan]

Yeah but whm is not a ninja.

"Not Ninja" is not an excuse for a 12.5 second uptime prep time on a mitigation option, be that for entirely scripted, predictable damage or otherwise.

Also, ninja is not the only class in existence where you need to press a different set of the same abilities to get a different result.

Never said it was. I only stated that you don't get to forgo any and all issues of responsiveness in the name of novelty/identity. (See 1.x.)

All of them are instant, so you can complete the combo in less than 7.5secs.

While I would have been less baffled if you'd given a 3-GCD sample initially than your 5-GCD one above, 7.5 seconds remains... very slow.

It's not like you are not responsive, like, literally the places where damage reduction is needed to survive can be counted on one hand and most of them require a tank to use lb3, not your sch or ast you use SS or CU respectively.

Then you are designing only for and around what is already admittedly poorly utilized. Such would as easily warrant the removal of half our healing spells, since we so rarely actually need them anyways.

Basic, Intermediate, Advanced and Terminal Relativity all are with a long cast time and are two minutes apart so that everyone can prepare for the big boom, even though all of the damage reduction abilities are instant oGCDs.

They're spaced 2 min apart so that you can, shockingly, time your raid defensive CDs accordingly. It has nothing to do with giving you two minutes to prepare an effect.

It doesn't matter.

It does matter. Apparent responsiveness... matters. Not feeling like sloggy dog feces... matters.

No matter how much time is technically given in such and such content as the only time one "really" needs X, Y, or Z, does not give license to attach concrete boots to X, Y, or Z. If any of those tools are added, they should feel decent to use, period.

Also, considering the fact that thin air will have 2 or 3 minutes cd, this won't be something that you can be constantly doing, unlike ninja.

You're really stretching this comparison well beyond its intent. I am not saying that your idea would turn WHM into a Ninja-but-as-a-healer. Nor am I saying that the only difference between it and Ninja is that your version would be painfully slow (though such would be historically iconic in the sense of a job introduced after WHM simply having WHM's tools but without the attached BS or constriction to barebone design). It's a simple example of a combinatorial system that clearly does not require 7.5 to 12.5 seconds of prep-work and will certainly be a point of comparison against your (5 to 8.3x as much time required to set up) system if yours were introduced. Will that be an entirely fair comparison? No. But it will be the obvious one, and you'd need to deal with that accordingly.