Is it just me or is WHM suffering?

[IttyBitty]

Sometimes it's hard to sympathise because of ideas like this. A lot of us liked the complexity healers had in 2.x/3.x, but the crybabies had to get them dumbed down to what we have now. And yet you still want to further simplify things. SE may have gone too far, but this is practically what the playerbase asked for.

Accuracy did not add any kind of complexity at all. You either melded as much as you could until you hit the caster cap, or you just missed over and over. Piety is no different. You either need it or you don't. It does absolutely nothing if you don't need it, whereas Det/Crit/DH/Spd always provide some "benefit" regardless of how much you have, even if it's not optimal (esp in the case of spd).

MP management in this game is a joke, because you don't actually get to make any decisions about how you go about it. You press Lucid on cooldown and you use your other abilities that provide additional mana either when they come up (eg Assize) or whenever you need to spend them without overcapping (eg Aetherflow, Addersgall spenders, Thin Air). You can't choose to generate/conserve mana in any way other than not doing anything at all. The fact that casters are the only ones that have to "manage" a resource like this is sort of hilarious. When physical classes would run dry on TP they just whined until it was removed. Can't see any of them clamouring for the "good old days" of "TP management". For added hilarity, what casters are left with is essentially TP 2.0.

What really chaffs my everything about piety is how detrimentally it can effect you when synced. Gear bloated with piety? Welp! Shall meld the other stats then! Oh wait materia is disabled when synced and 99% of content is done synced so now I have gcd of slow, no crit, and useless MP regen in content that barely requires any healing to begin with. Brilliant!

I hate a lot of things about how syncing works and this is definitely one of them. I love having my stats invalidated instead of just squished to the ilevel sync caps!

[UkcsAlias]

You can't choose to generate/conserve mana in any way other than not doing anything at all.

This is where cure 1 should normaly come into play, but the issue is simply that its healing is too weak and wastes a lot of potential damage output.

The current 15% chance means you would need about 6 cure 1 casts for 1 free cure 2, and even that is not reliable, thats simply not worth the potency cost, even if that would have saved you several thousands of MP, because at that point you are saving up too much MP. But that is also somewhat unbalanced, since you arent supposed to use it 6 times in a row anyway, just weave in a few cure 1's between the cure 2, and you save up some mana, with an occasional free cast.

Cure 1 even in the late game, is an MP saving healing ability, and its very niche on that, but it exists for the purpose of saving MP. MP regeneration is at that time faster than what cure 1 consumes. Its just that its too niche and weak in most cases, to a point where healers simply decide its not worth having. And then when it goes wrong, they obviously complain about running out of MP.

But to fix it i would adjust 1 thing:
Instead of a 15% chance, it should be a 100% chance of reducing the cure 2 cost (just make it 400mp then), to make it worth it: 2x 800 potency at a 1600MP cost, or 500+800 potency at a 800MP cost. In which a single cure 1 cast allows a quite big save on MP and only cost 300 potency (its still a 20% reduction, but a fair enough one).
This however makes it more reliable in usage (and therefor adding a lot of convenience), and although some will still think its too weak. If they run out of MP, its their own fault for not understanding MP management.

Just because cure 1 has a lower healing value, doesnt instantly mean its useless. Because when out of MP, this little bit of healing suddenly becomes infinitely more than not healing at all (and only 40% weaker than cure 2 spamming).

[Semirhage]

Alternatively you could play a healer that has a ludicrous number of off-GCD heals and bring your target back up instantly, for free, costing you zero MP and never once interrupting your damage for it.

Instead of playing the healer with design trapped in ARR, bothering with spells like Cure so you can waste time on the thrill of "MP management". While the other healers have gimmicks that actually bring positive contributions to the group, instead of being focused on minimizing how much your class is gimping your group.

[UkcsAlias]

You clearly show that you have no idea how class variety and balancing can work, because there are a LOT of ways to achieve similar results.

Resource management is a very common thing in many games, and depending on the class/job it can be a variety of resources. MP is just like HP, GCD time, stamina (not the HP type, but the type FPS games often have to prevent spamming) a resource that in some cases needs management. A good example is the medic in tf2 in healing time, sure, he can overheal the heavy constantly, but that outputs only 50% of the healing compared to just making sure the heavy doesnt hit 0, and keeps him slightly below 300hp. This is resource management dedicated towards just 1 class (to compare, the engineer and heavy are very ammo oriented, and the spy is cloak time oriented, there are plenty of resource management classes there). Thats why making WHM like the other healers not rely on GCD a bad fix. Resource management is a feature that can make a class interesting.

The real fix is making sure that WHM isnt losing out, and this can (for example) be done by making the GCD damage more potent. But obviously, this should be situational, so maybe instead of a static value, its boosted by healing others. Lets say each cure cast adds 100 potency, and suddenly it doesnt matter you only cast it a few times, because each cast is significantly stronger. This is a completely diffirent approach while preserving most of the MP management aspects. And even adds a new one that can be managed (as in this case it behaves more like the FPS type of stamina).

Giving lots of oGCD healing abilities is just a cheap fix that realy doesnt create any dynamic interactions within the class itself. And while you might not like MP management, some do. Its a bad thing to make all classes suit to most players, because then those players will always just go for the strongest... a meta. If the classes vary a lot, then this becomes almost impossible to do. And yes, some classes might be generaly too hard, but its usualy those classes that also end up being the strongest (because they are generaly made a bit OP to compensate for difficulty). Variety is important. Dont make every class the same.

[Rilifane]

You clearly show that you have no idea how class variety and balancing can work, because there are a LOT of ways to achieve similar results.

Resource management is a very common thing in many games, and depending on the class/job it can be a variety of resources. MP is just like HP, GCD time, stamina (not the HP type, but the type FPS games often have to prevent spamming) a resource that in some cases needs management. A good example is the medic in tf2 in healing time, sure, he can overheal the heavy constantly, but that outputs only 50% of the healing compared to just making sure the heavy doesnt hit 0, and keeps him slightly below 300hp. This is resource management dedicated towards just 1 class (to compare, the engineer and heavy are very ammo oriented, and the spy is cloak time oriented, there are plenty of resource management classes there). Thats why making WHM like the other healers not rely on GCD a bad fix. Resource management is a feature that can make a class interesting.

The real fix is making sure that WHM isnt losing out, and this can (for example) be done by making the GCD damage more potent. But obviously, this should be situational, so maybe instead of a static value, its boosted by healing others. Lets say each cure cast adds 100 potency, and suddenly it doesnt matter you only cast it a few times, because each cast is significantly stronger. This is a completely diffirent approach while preserving most of the MP management aspects. And even adds a new one that can be managed (as in this case it behaves more like the FPS type of stamina).

Giving lots of oGCD healing abilities is just a cheap fix that realy doesnt create any dynamic interactions within the class itself. And while you might not like MP management, some do. Its a bad thing to make all classes suit to most players, because then those players will always just go for the strongest... a meta. If the classes vary a lot, then this becomes almost impossible to do. And yes, some classes might be generaly too hard, but its usualy those classes that also end up being the strongest (because they are generaly made a bit OP to compensate for difficulty). Variety is important. Dont make every class the same.

Are we talking about ARR content? Because it sure seems like you do.
A Cure cast adds 100 potency of what and to what exactly? 100 Cure potency to the next Cure cast?
If it's that, Cure would become slightly better in low level content but will be insignificant once again come HW. Unless, of course, you plan to delete Lilies and all oGCDs.

A Cure cast is still a full GCD lost to wet noodle healing with zero damage return. Even if this 100 potency buff would be a stacking, permanent buff until current fight ends you'd need 4 casts for it to be on par with Cure II below 85 and 5 at 85+. With your fix, WHM is losing out even more, especially if it would need to rely on it. It would lose out on damage.
I think you underestimate that FFXIV always has been a highly dps and uptime focused game - yes, starting as early as ARR. It's not a new thing. There's no "pure healer" fantasy to go back to, we never had one to begin with.
If you want MP management, tacking 100 potencyon consecutive freaking Cure casts of all things isn't going to cut it. If that is WHM's form of MP management, I'd never touch it again. Ever. And I barely touch it as it is.

There are a myriad of ways to design classes that are balanced but varied and with synergies. You want some good ideas? Look at the WHM change video someone posted here. Now that's what I call class identity and interaction. And I'm sure if asked, he'd be able to come up with some really neat ideas for MP management aswell.
Cure I isn't a MP management tool, it's crap. And no amount of mental gymnastics will change it, least of all a measly additional 100 potency.

And if it adds another 100 potency to the next nuke cast, it's still a gigantic dps loss.
Bigger than Toxikon and that mechanic is the only thing about Sage that is constantly criticised.

[Liam_Harper]

Giving lots of oGCD healing abilities is just a cheap fix that realy doesnt create any dynamic interactions within the class itself.

oGCD's are management in that they're limited by a cooldown. You can't blindly spam them or waste several of them on a small scratch or you'll run out when actual damage happens.

To be honest the cheap fix in this game is MP. You can use it to blindly spam the same 2-3 heals over and over. It rewards you the worse your cast uptime is or if you refuse to dps, because you'll lose less of it. If you still don't have enough, you can shove a ton of piety on your gear to further fuel bad habits. There's no "skill" in mana in this game.

Giving Cure a 100% proc does nothing. Nobody uses Cure II at endgame except in dire emergencies once or twice a month. It has nothing to do with WHM mana issues.

[UkcsAlias]

Are we talking about ARR content? Because it sure seems like you do.

Actualy stormblood. And there i do notice that i mostly use lilies for healing and start using my GCD mostly for dealing damage. And i am aware this only gets worse later on.

And with cure i ment any direct healing ability (lilies included).

A Cure cast is still a full GCD lost to wet noodle healing with zero damage return

With my 100 potency idea (which was just a random value, as i would definitely make that value a percentage instead). You can do 1 GCD heal, and then 1 stone/glare cast. And by alternating you essentialy would still lose no damage. Because of combo effects.
And this is exactly what i mean with going for alternative solutions. Giving combo based boosts can do quite a bit. It can even be taken in such way it would exceed the base damage. You can also add multiple stacks to the effect if damage needs to be stalled more.
Another way is that after each stone/glare cast, you unlock a diffirent ability to be used that has even higher damage, yet still is GCD (gunbreaker style).

This allows a lot of abilities to remain on the GCD, and still allow occasional heals to be placed inbetween. Especialy if those heals boost other abilities to double the damage values. We could also take it the other way, the more you cast stone/glare, the more healing the next GCD ability will do.

There are a myriad of ways to design classes that are balanced but varied and with synergies.

If you are forced to spam cure 2 to keep a target alive, you are very quickly going to run into mana issues. Cure 1 can catch that moment, and thats also its only moment (yes, i agree its crap. but its still a tool).
And maybe it could instead be a GCD reduction based on the ability that was used (for example a cure 2 cast causes the GCD to be reduced by 20% for 5 casts). It still keeps the GCD, but adds more room for additional casts

But the real issue simply lies at the way GCD scales with newer abilities (it simply doesnt). So no matter how many abilities you get, you will always be capped by the GCD. A normal way would be to grant damage increases by trait. But even this becomes limited (and actualy is quite dull). And because of all those extra abilities, you simply wont be using all of them (you just go for the strongest). But as the gunbreaker shows, it can be managed! It would make the WHM a lot more complex towards newer players, and require a big rework, but beyond level 60 that simply shouldnt matter anymore.

And i can understand why oGCD abilities take preference in that. It simply works. The issue with putting too much off the GCD is that it will too quickly become the default way to go around the issue. Because its too easy to apply. But i agree, changes are needed.

[Semirhage]

You clearly show that you have no idea how class variety and balancing can work, because there are a LOT of ways to achieve similar results.

Resource management is a very common thing in many games, and depending on the class/job it can be a variety of resources. MP is just like HP, GCD time, stamina (not the HP type, but the type FPS games often have to prevent spamming) a resource that in some cases needs management. A good example is the medic in tf2 in healing time, sure, he can overheal the heavy constantly, but that outputs only 50% of the healing compared to just making sure the heavy doesnt hit 0, and keeps him slightly below 300hp. This is resource management dedicated towards just 1 class (to compare, the engineer and heavy are very ammo oriented, and the spy is cloak time oriented, there are plenty of resource management classes there). Thats why making WHM like the other healers not rely on GCD a bad fix. Resource management is a feature that can make a class interesting.

The real fix is making sure that WHM isnt losing out, and this can (for example) be done by making the GCD damage more potent. But obviously, this should be situational, so maybe instead of a static value, its boosted by healing others. Lets say each cure cast adds 100 potency, and suddenly it doesnt matter you only cast it a few times, because each cast is significantly stronger. This is a completely diffirent approach while preserving most of the MP management aspects. And even adds a new one that can be managed (as in this case it behaves more like the FPS type of stamina).

Giving lots of oGCD healing abilities is just a cheap fix that realy doesnt create any dynamic interactions within the class itself. And while you might not like MP management, some do. Its a bad thing to make all classes suit to most players, because then those players will always just go for the strongest... a meta. If the classes vary a lot, then this becomes almost impossible to do. And yes, some classes might be generaly too hard, but its usualy those classes that also end up being the strongest (because they are generaly made a bit OP to compensate for difficulty). Variety is important. Dont make every class the same.

I actually have a ton of experience with varied classes, and have played RPGs for most of my life. The problem with making small tweaks to WHM is that the other healers are just...well, I'd hesitate to call them "better designed", because we're all riding the 11111111111 design train to hell, but I'll call them designed in a way that's more suited to how FFXIV's combat system works. FFXIV, for better or worse, is a massively damage-fixated game. There is no instance in this game (outside wacky phase pushing in unsynced content that makes boss mechanics do weird things) where higher damage output isn't a good thing. This is further compromised by how infrequent and unthreatening incoming damage is in nearly all content. WHM being "the MP management healer" all by itself doesn't work unless you want to curse it with being permanently the weakest, worst healer. The unfortunate thing is, the other three healers don't manage MP because they don't need to. Their kits shift most of their healing power into oGCDs- abilities which trade spammability for being instant and free. Since this game hardly rewards healing being spammable, this "trade off" is anything but. It adds a ton of strength while attaching a meaningless weakness. It means their healing abilities are designed in a way that works WITH how the combat system is designed. Furthermore, they have mechanics like cards, like Chain Strategem, like Kardia, that enable them to push even more damage, which again is the thing that FFXIV's combat system rewards.

WHM's kit does the opposite. It forces you into GCD healing earlier so you lose damage more quickly. It makes you lose even more damage from that GCD healing because you have no buffs or extra DoTs to mitigate dropping into GCD healing- you drop a Glare and that damage is just gone. It punishes you by draining your MP faster than all the other healers. It "rewards" you for using your job gauge with a damage loss. WHM is the weakest healer because its entire kit theme is based around picking the least bad option instead of providing you rewards for choosing good ones. WHM needs a lot of things, but adding yet another cumbersome system that punishes them for playing poorly ain't it.

I'm not against the concept of MP management as a whole, but A) you'd need to redesign a helluva lot to make it an actual thing in this game, because meaningful choice doesn't exist in the kits as currently designed and isn't achievable via a tweak or two, and B) if you're going to add a skill-based system that only punishes you for failure (rather than rewarding you for success), I'd hardly consider the healer already bursting with punishment mechanics to be the prime candidate for it.

[FujikoN]

" It will mean the opposite, because good healers heal less."

If you heal less it doesn't mean you're a good healer. It's mean your party experienced or you're lazy.

[FujikoN]

A copium delirium is yours. Because you still think whm has to dps not heal. This is the problem with using DPS as a metric for healers.