WHM Desperately Needs An Overhaul

[ty_taurus]

I really don't understand the obsession with wanting to move stuff to the OGCD like with Misery and Toxikon. If we just fix their potencies, the problem is not only resolved, but that also means we get a dedicated GCD button that isn't Glare/Dosis/etc. that we actively want to use regularly.

[HyperiusUltima]

I really don't understand the obsession with wanting to move stuff to the OGCD like with Misery and Toxikon. If we just fix their potencies, the problem is not only resolved, but that also means we get a dedicated GCD button that isn't Glare/Dosis/etc. that we actively want to use regularly.

Misery and Toxikon can stay on GCD for all I care since they're offensives. I just want WHM's Afflatus abilities to actually be turned to oGCD since they grind hard against the 1.5s cast time despite being instant cast. It feels like there's a flaw in design when the other healers don't have this problem - and sure, you can argue that it'd be too similar to SGE in this regard, but those Lilies would at least be building up to something that's actually a gain instead of a loss and would bump up WHM significantly if they kept Misery's current potency.

[Shurrikhan]

Misery and Toxikon can stay on GCD for all I care since they're offensives. I just want WHM's Afflatus abilities to actually be turned to oGCD since they grind hard against the 1.5s cast time despite being instant cast. It feels like there's a flaw in design when the other healers don't have this problem - and sure, you can argue that it'd be too similar to SGE in this regard, but those Lilies would at least be building up to something that's actually a gain instead of a loss and would bump up WHM significantly if they kept Misery's current potency.

Turning the Afflatus actions (or, Afflatus actions minus Misery, in your case) into oGCDs would reduce their strength (as they'd then be free healing) and that of Misery (as it'd now be free damage in its excess over Glare III / Holy III) while reducing WHM MP conservation, mobility, and weave space.

There's no point in directly comparing a Lily heal to, say, Lustrate or Druochole when the latter do not build towards something like Misery and their respective kits were built around that healing output.

WHM's available free (i.e., that which doesn't cost offensive potency) cure potency per minute and available burst healing should be a bit higher, admittedly, but not by simply copying other jobs' procedures onto it heedless of context.

[ty_taurus]

Misery and Toxikon can stay on GCD for all I care since they're offensives. I just want WHM's Afflatus abilities to actually be turned to oGCD since they grind hard against the 1.5s cast time despite being instant cast. It feels like there's a flaw in design when the other healers don't have this problem - and sure, you can argue that it'd be too similar to SGE in this regard, but those Lilies would at least be building up to something that's actually a gain instead of a loss and would bump up WHM significantly if they kept Misery's current potency.

I'm going to throw down this card: Making the lilies OGCD heals is objectively worse than just buffing Misery's potency for every type of WHM player. Here's why...

1. Many players like that WHM is a slower-paced healer, whether it's because they're not as skilled enough to play the other healers, or sometimes because they physically have a hard time with higher APM jobs like AST due to conditions like arthritis. While WHM is hilariously bad in almost every way compared to the other healers, being a low APM job actually is a unique aspect of the job and could be utilized to great effect to make it a job that's slower but more methodological.
2. Currently, if you're reapplying your DoTs on time every time, that equates to 3 GCDs every 90 seconds leaving you with potentially 33 Glare III casts. You may be forced to heal instead for a few of those, but emphasis on the word "forced." Ideally, you will not have to use your GCD heals, and thus are aiming for 33 Glare IIIs every 90 seconds. If Misery is made DPS neutral, then lily heals are no longer a deterrent and can be used interchangeably with Glare III at no potency loss (Potentially for a gain if you time your Miseries with buff windows). This means theoretically 4 less Glare III casts per 90 second window if you're not over capping on lilies. Casting less Glare III is something everyone wants.
3. It makes lilies competitive with OGCD healing on other healers in the same way that Pneuma is. It's not OGCD, but because Pneuma is DPS neutral, it can therefore be used interchangeably with OGCDs. The same would be true for Lilies if Misery were buffed, resolving your concern.

[HyperiusUltima]

1. Many players like that WHM is a slower-paced healer, whether it's because they're not as skilled enough to play the other healers, or sometimes because they physically have a hard time with higher APM jobs like AST due to conditions like arthritis. While WHM is hilariously bad in almost every way compared to the other healers, being a low APM job actually is a unique aspect of the job and could be utilized to great effect to make it a job that's slower but more methodological.

2. Currently, if you're reapplying your DoTs on time every time, that equates to 3 GCDs every 90 seconds leaving you with potentially 33 Glare III casts. You may be forced to heal instead for a few of those, but emphasis on the word "forced." Ideally, you will not have to use your GCD heals, and thus are aiming for 33 Glare IIIs every 90 seconds. If Misery is made DPS neutral, then lily heals are no longer a deterrent and can be used interchangeably with Glare III at no potency loss (Potentially for a gain if you time your Miseries with buff windows). This means theoretically 4 less Glare III casts per 90 second window if you're not over capping on lilies. Casting less Glare III is something everyone wants.
3. It makes lilies competitive with OGCD healing on other healers in the same way that Pneuma is. It's not OGCD, but because Pneuma is DPS neutral, it can therefore be used interchangeably with OGCDs. The same would be true for Lilies if Misery were buffed, resolving your concern.

This I can understand, given I saw a post on Reddit the other day where someone literally had arthritis from playing DRG at a high level. I've been rethinking a bit about how jobs are designed in regards to GCDs since then, and I'll agree that maybe WHM does feel good on the low APM side; however, we still have to address the issues we have with Lilies. Taking what Shurrikhan said, it literally can go either way with oGCD or GCD Lilies since I made it a secondary option in the OP for this reason. If we're to design around a high level WHM that runs on GCDs alone, then we need to consider the Raw Potency as outlined in the original design of WHM in XIV. Adding raw potency to Misery to make it neutral would be a large gain to WHM instead of just Glare spam.

[aiqa]

This I can understand, given I saw a post on Reddit the other day where someone literally had arthritis from playing DRG at a high level. I've been rethinking a bit about how jobs are designed in regards to GCDs since then, and I'll agree that maybe WHM does feel good on the low APM side; however, we still have to address the issues we have with Lilies. Taking what Shurrikhan said, it literally can go either way with oGCD or GCD Lilies since I made it a secondary option in the OP for this reason. If we're to design around a high level WHM that runs on GCDs alone, then we need to consider the Raw Potency as outlined in the original design of WHM in XIV. Adding raw potency to Misery to make it neutral would be a large gain to WHM instead of just Glare spam.

Low APM is fine as far as I'm concerned, but existing spells aren't utilized well even if Misery potency gets increased. I don't really see why a role with the least damage spells should also have one of the highest "cooldowns" on one of those damage spells. Using misery every 90 seconds at most doesn't add that much to WHM rotation over Glare spam. I'd much prefer Misery every 30 seconds even if that means lowering its potency a bit. And the long Dia duration seems nice at first, but in effect that just means using Glare even more compared to the old Aero/Stone.

[Silver-Strider]

Low APM is fine as far as I'm concerned, but existing spells aren't utilized well even if Misery potency gets increased. I don't really see why a role with the least damage spells should also have one of the highest "cooldowns" on one of those damage spells. Using misery every 90 seconds at most doesn't add that much to WHM rotation over Glare spam. I'd much prefer Misery every 30 seconds even if that means lowering its potency a bit. And the long Dia duration seems nice at first, but in effect that just means using Glare even more compared to the old Aero/Stone.

That could all be resolved by adding procs like the Diacloud suggestion. Something to break up the monotony and to give more purpose to our toolkit in ways that are simple but impactful and actually rewarding to utilize. If SE would just stop with cuddling healers to death, we could have actually engaging gameplay with just our 3 DPS spells but instead we just have an overbloated healing toolkit that is overkill for the majority of content and even in the content we can utilize it, they're so potent that we're still stuck spamming our 1 filler spell with nothing else to do except refresh our DoT occasionally.

[Shurrikhan]

That could all be resolved by adding procs like the Diacloud suggestion. Something to break up the monotony and to give more purpose to our toolkit in ways that are simple but impactful and actually rewarding to utilize.

That probably needs to at least have banking, though, even if that may reduce the urgency granted. Having a chance to waste a loaded proc with each server tick is rarely a good fit for healer and would constrain any later attempts towards a lower-percentage-downtime design philosophy for healers.

Moreover, I'm not sure how "break up all other possible procedures through immediate use of thing A upon proc-chime" would be particularly impactful or rewarding outside of a kit like that of BLM in which it should be held under state A and used mostly immediately under state B and both states are rotated between.

tl;dr: Procs can be of use, but only in the right contexts. They are not remotely sufficient in and of themselves.