WHM Desperately Needs An Overhaul

[Silver-Strider]

. If you really want an improvement, focus on ONE thing and ask for it relentlessly. For me, I'd want that one thing to be a second charge on Assize. Let me align it with raid buffs and/or save one charge for healing and I'd be happy. (Plus it's one extra guaranteed assize cast in a fight.) That change alone makes WHM more fun/interesting, and closes the gap with AST in terms of rDPS (in mediocre parties, not speedruns of course).

A 0.03% DPS buff that doesn't effectively help in addressing its MP issue nor the DPS discrepancy between WHM and SGE, much less AST, and only mildly addresses the issue of being unable to use Assize for healing. Hard pass there.

1 improvement is not going to solve all of WHM's issues.

Buffing Misery has the largest impact on WHM since lilies at least save more MP than Assize grants, grants you weave windows+mobility and offers the same benefits as an extra charge of Assize (More DPS and Healing) but even that wouldn't be enough to magically fix WHM because it has more issues than 1 improvement can realistically cover so no, I will NOT focus on 1 improvement because it's not enough.

[Liam_Harper]

The reason I don't see oGCD heal tax as a meaningful choice is because quite often you have no choice over how much healing the group needs. It's a decision at a very basic level, like "I shouldn't waste all my Aetherflow on scratches", but that stops being a thing once you become even moderately competent at the class. You can't choose if the dps collect vuln stacks or the group doesn't mitigate or the tanks are made of paper or 5 people die to a mechanic. When this happens, your "meaningful choice" is essentially a forced loss.

It's also not "meaningful" in that it really doesn't matter if you blow extra Aetherflow or Lilies to heal. Those tiny 100 potencies really don't mean much to the average player and are a tiny fraction of your overall dps. So it means very little and doesn't give you a big reward for playing well. It's just a feel-bad for the player who optimizes and is forced to take small hits for circumstances they couldn't avoid.

GCD heals are plenty for tax. They're your "out of resources" option where you convert dps into healing. Taxing your initial resources feels off.

[Leonerdo]

A 0.03% DPS buff that doesn't effectively help in addressing its MP issue nor the DPS discrepancy between WHM and SGE, much less AST, and only mildly addresses the issue of being unable to use Assize for healing. Hard pass there.

1 improvement is not going to solve all of WHM's issues.

Buffing Misery has the largest impact on WHM since lilies at least save more MP than Assize grants, grants you weave windows+mobility and offers the same benefits as an extra charge of Assize (More DPS and Healing) but even that wouldn't be enough to magically fix WHM because it has more issues than 1 improvement can realistically cover so no, I will NOT focus on 1 improvement because it's not enough.

One assize extra assize in an 8 minute fight is about about a 0.5% DPS buff. (I checked one of my purple P2S logs, so it should be close to the average contribution. It's somewhat optimized, but not in speedrun territory.)

Regardless, if you think WHM needs more than that, that's a fine opinion I can't fault you for. Maybe one change isn't enough. I still think it would be better to focus on just 2 or 3 changes than the whole laundry list that's in the OP.

As for my opinion, I'm still on the fence about Misery buffs. To me, the current damage loss is an extra element of gameplay I get to think about. The cost isn't too high that it's prohibitive; lilies are still frequently worth using for healing or mobility. And I don't have mana issues unless I'm reviving multiple people without Thin Air (with about 200 piety from gear). So in my eyes, buffing Misery isn't really necessary, but I guess it would be more fun for others if they can use lilies more freely.

*As for raw rDPS balance, WHM is behind by about 4% (more than the last time I checked, oof... I thought it was like 1.5%). But realistically WHM will always be ~1% behind, because it's got a lower skill floor and it's more popular than other healers. WHM stats will always be skewed down a little just because there are more newbs playing it. Regardless of any bias, WHM could certainly use a small damage buff. Buffing Glare/Dia would be fine for that, IMO. Buffing Misery a bit would be fine too. Like I said, it's not my priority.

I just don't want to use Assize on cooldown anymore, wasting the healing, and still feel bad about it because of the unavoidable clipping.

[ty_taurus]

One assize extra assize in an 8 minute fight is about about a 0.5% DPS buff. (I checked one of my purple P2S logs, so it should be close to the average contribution. It's somewhat optimized, but not in speedrun territory.)

Regardless, if you think WHM needs more than that, that's a fine opinion I can't fault you for. Maybe one change isn't enough. I still think it would be better to focus on just 2 or 3 changes than the whole laundry list that's in the OP.

As for my opinion, I'm still on the fence about Misery buffs. To me, the current damage loss is an extra element of gameplay I get to think about. The cost isn't too high that it's prohibitive; lilies are still frequently worth using for healing or mobility. And I don't have mana issues unless I'm reviving multiple people without Thin Air (with about 200 piety from gear). So in my eyes, buffing Misery isn't really necessary, but I guess it would be more fun for others if they can use lilies more freely.

*As for raw rDPS balance, WHM is behind by about 4% (more than the last time I checked, oof... I thought it was like 1.5%). But realistically WHM will always be ~1% behind, because it's got a lower skill floor and it's more popular than other healers. WHM stats will always be skewed down a little just because there are more newbs playing it. Regardless of any bias, WHM could certainly use a small damage buff. Buffing Glare/Dia would be fine for that, IMO. Buffing Misery a bit would be fine too. Like I said, it's not my priority.

I just don't want to use Assize on cooldown anymore, wasting the healing, and still feel bad about it because of the unavoidable clipping.

They did seem to namedrop certain abilities in need of improvement that people have been bringing up for literally years, like Living Dead, so I have a lightly positive outlook on what the WHM changes will end up being. I don't think it's going to be everything we asked for and more, but I do feel that there's more hope for some criticisms that have been discussed multiple times. At present, here are some things that I feel are plausible changes we could see--not necessarily all of these at once, but maybe some of them:

1. Make lilies restore MP on use - This is the most likely change in my mind because it matches up with how the other healers work in a sense--restoring MP when they use their main resource.
2. Buffing Misery - If we were to make Misery DPS neutral in line with the change listed above, that would immediately make WHM feel a lot smoother, however, I think we might likely see them simply streamline Misery's potency with Glare even if still at a loss (i.e. 870 potency at level 74 and upgrades to 930 potency at level 82). I think they just don't actually consider the cast of Misery as a part of the calculation and I don't trust that they've changed their mind on that.
3. Add a charge to Assize - This is one that's been talked about for a while now and might get acknowledged finally. It's really not a crazy change.
4. Lower MP costs for some GCD heals like Medica II or buff the potencies - The AST comparison has been brought up multiple times that their potencies are the same but WHM's is just higher. They've done this before where they corrected MP costs, but they might also consider making their GCD heals stronger to further their idea of WHM being the big numbers healer.
5. Doing something with Thin Air - Thin Air's nerf was pretty negatively received and is a fairly recent change, which they are sometimes responsive to. I'm not really sure what they would do to buff it though. There are many things they can do, but I don't really have an idea of what direction they would take.
6. Allowing Liturgy to be manually triggered - Another heavy topic is how bad Liturgy feels. It reminds me a lot of Plenary Indulgence also being miserably received, and they were quick to rework it. So I feel like they may respond to this promptly as well.

We'll ultimately see what happens next month, or perhaps get some hints during the next liveletter, but those are the general areas I'm thinking will be looked at. I think it would be nice if all of them were addressed, but I don't think they will. It is a lot of attention to MP across those points as well which they likely won't be going overboard on. I could also maybe see them taking the MP restore out of Assize if they did all of those things at once, to better balance WHM's MP economy. Keep in mind these are just the things that I think they might do, though it's definitely influenced by my understanding of WHM's problems and not theirs. So we'll see.