QoL suggestions for WHM.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Interesting read. I like most of them, but I’d like to ask more:

Fluid Aura
I personally like to see Fluid Aura staying because removing that in EW feels like as good as deleting CNJ’s lv15 quest. Perhaps an 8% damage reduction fares better to not make it too powerful that early? What do you think? inhaledcorn also made a good point on slapping in MP regeneration component, especially when WHM’s EW MP economy is shafted hard.

Afflatus Misery
I was under impression that WHMs shouldn’t feel bad on losing dps by using their lilies. What is the reason for you to not bumping up Misery’s potency to neuter the dps loss from using lilies? I’m genuinely curious

Assize
Here, this. I believe this is my favorite ability from WHM’s arsenal. I had a bit of healer discussion with my FC cohealer. We agreed to one thing about WHM: bumping up the MP restoration component to ease up their terribly MP economy in EW, just like you did here. But we also thought about tweaking how the ability functions as well. It’s as follow:

Assize - Changed into instant GCD with 2 charges while retaining their 45s timer.
Deals unaspected damage of 400 potency to all nearby enemies while granting nearby party members with ‘Confession’.
Confession: Upon receiving any hp restoration, triggers an additional healing effect. Stacks up to 3 times.
Cure potency: 350p
Duration: X seconds
Maximum Charges: 2
Additional Effect: Restores MP up to Y% of Max MP.
Can only be executed in combat.

What do you think?

”But wait, what about Plenary Indulgence?”
Frankly we never really liked the ability given how clunky it is to utilize it AND the fact there are very few instances where we get to utilize all those additional healing potency to its full potential. So we thought about removing lv70 capstone by combining it to Assize and to replace it with something else… which we still have 0 idea about what XD preferably some utility…perhaps?

[Silver-Strider]

Assize
Here, this. I believe this is my favorite ability from WHM’s arsenal. I had a bit of healer discussion with my FC cohealer. We agreed to one thing about WHM: bumping up the MP restoration component to ease up their terribly MP economy in EW, just like you did here. But we also thought about tweaking how the ability functions as well. It’s as follow:

Assize - Changed into instant GCD with 2 charges while retaining their 45s timer.
Deals unaspected damage of 400 potency to all nearby enemies while granting nearby party members with ‘Confession’.
Confession: Upon receiving any hp restoration, triggers an additional healing effect. Stacks up to 3 times.
Cure potency: 350p
Duration: X seconds
Maximum Charges: 2
Additional Effect: Restores MP up to Y% of Max MP.
Can only be executed in combat.

What do you think?

”But wait, what about Plenary Indulgence?”
Frankly we never really liked the ability given how clunky it is to utilize it AND the fact there are very few instances where we get to utilize all those additional healing potency to its full potential. So we thought about removing lv70 capstone by combining it to Assize and to replace it with something else… which we still have 0 idea about what XD preferably some utility…perhaps?

I'll be honest here, this version of Assize would be arguably too powerful. At 400 potency, it would be used as a DPS gain over Glare 3, making the built in PI a secondary benefit that might also not be utilized effectively, which would defeat the purpose of the skill replacing PI.

I do understand that PI can be clunky and feels wasted most of the time so how about an alternative instead?

Plenary Indulgence
Place 3 Confession stacks to self and nearby allies
Upon receiving HP recovery via Medica, Medica II, Cure III, or Afflatus Rapture cast by self, uses a Confession to trigger an additional healing effect. Upon the duration finishing, Heal for 200 Potency per remaining Confession Stacks.
Cure Potency: 200
Duration: 15 seconds

With this increase to duration, it allows some level of flexibility to the skill while also allowing for it to function as a pseudo-oGCD heal. This way, the skill offers something outside of just a fluff potency increase to our AoE skills and further increases WHM's oGCD toolkit a bit.

[Renathras]

I feel like the Lilibell shield might be too OP, but otherwise I think these would be good changes overall, honestly. I like having abilities upgrade like Aqua Veil and Protect since some other healers already have systems like this and it just MAKES SENSE at this point to simultaneously reduce button bloat and yet to get people in the habit of using things earlier.

WHM's are trained in leveling to use GCD cast heals, then expected to primarily oGCD heal at high levels. Using non-Lily GCD heals is considered "bad", yet this is literally the only thing you CAN do until level 50 when you can use Benison once per minute and you don't even get your first Lily until Heavensward when it should be more like level 30ish.

If people are supposed to know what they do at end-game, they need to be taught that early in the leveling curve, not once they're half-way through the leveling process. Having abilities that upgrade gives them that, and doing things like adding charges, increasing the effects, adding new effects, or reducing CDs are a good way to give those things to players earlier and then iterate on them later on once they're already comfortable using them.

[Silver-Strider]

I feel like the Lilibell shield might be too OP, but otherwise I think these would be good changes overall, honestly. I like having abilities upgrade like Aqua Veil and Protect since some other healers already have systems like this and it just MAKES SENSE at this point to simultaneously reduce button bloat and yet to get people in the habit of using things earlier.

WHM's are trained in leveling to use GCD cast heals, then expected to primarily oGCD heal at high levels. Using non-Lily GCD heals is considered "bad", yet this is literally the only thing you CAN do until level 50 when you can use Benison once per minute and you don't even get your first Lily until Heavensward when it should be more like level 30ish.

If people are supposed to know what they do at end-game, they need to be taught that early in the leveling curve, not once they're half-way through the leveling process. Having abilities that upgrade gives them that, and doing things like adding charges, increasing the effects, adding new effects, or reducing CDs are a good way to give those things to players earlier and then iterate on them later on once they're already comfortable using them.

Lilybell kind of needs to have a strong effect considering its 3 minute CD. While the max potential on the shield is pretty powerful, you kind of have to understand that the likelihood of ever getting the full benefit of the skill is almost moot in any content that matters. In dungeons, sure the Healer and DPS might never get hit and get that 750 shield but if you're not getting hit, the shield is kind of redundant, isn't it? In progression of anything, from Extreme Trials to Ultimate content, you're very unlikely to ever reach that high and even once you get content on farm, there's really no guarantee you'll get that full shield anyways simply because mechanics exist and holding off on Lilybell just to get a bigger shield when the healing is much more important at those times is just not something that I can see happening. Then we have to consider the shielding capabilities of the other healers. While 750 shield is high in regards to the standard potency of shields currently, SCH/SGE have on demand shielding so they'll end up surpassing WHM's shielding capabilities pretty handedly and as for AST, Neutral Sect may only offer an AoE shield of about 350 potency, it can also be done several times during its duration and is on a shorter CD than Lilybell so it would more or less even out in the long run. It's ultimately a matter of opinion though so I won't begrudge you yours.

The rest of the changes were designed with that exact mindset of getting WHM to learn its toolkit more thoroughly throughout its leveling process. Giving all these healing tools at the tailend of your leveling journey causes you to have to unlearn all the habits you've developed as you leveled and creates this gap in effectiveness that is kind of overwhelming to people, so by reincorporating those old skills and using the trait system to upgrade them as appropriate, you give players that chance to experiment and grow to be better equip to handle everything once they've reached end game. Sure, not all of the changes address everything perfectly but it still sets a very solid foundation for the class going forward and that's what I'm aiming for here.