White Mage's 6.1 changes fail to address a core issue I have with the job.

[ty_taurus]

I have some thoughts on addressing the overhealing issue as well as the downtime issue. What if we did something along the lines of this:

- Afflatus Propagation: 60 Potency offensive GCD spell with a radius of 6 yalms that applies Dia to all targets. 60 Second cooldown. Consumes 1 Lily & Nourishes the Blood Lily. Has 2 Charges
- Afflatus Purgation: 465 Potency Line AoE offensive GCD spell that deals 50% less damage to targets after the first. 120 Second cooldown. Consumes 1 Lily & Nourishes the Blood Lily.
- Efflorescence: OGCD Buff that generates 1 Lily and causes your next GCD heal to apply Regen to any/all allies. The Regen potency would be halved on AoE heals. 90 Second cooldown.
- Germinate: GCD Spell that Nourishes the Blood Lily. Does not consume a Lily. Has a 3 second recast time, delaying the GCD slightly.

Afflatus Propagation does not stack with Dia as it applies Dia, therefore it can be used instead of Dia when you want to consume a Lily or can be used for AoE Dia.

Afflatus Purgation acts as an enhancement to burst damage during buff windows since you also nourish a blood lily from it.

Efflorescence gives you a way to ensure you have lilies when you need them for healing.

Germinate is a DPS loss, but can be used to get your Misery ready during downtime.

Thoughts on something like that?

[VerdeLuck]

I have some thoughts on addressing the overhealing issue as well as the downtime issue. What if we did something along the lines of this:

- Afflatus Propagation: 60 Potency offensive GCD spell with a radius of 6 yalms that applies Dia to all targets. 60 Second cooldown. Consumes 1 Lily & Nourishes the Blood Lily. Has 2 Charges
- Afflatus Purgation: 465 Potency Line AoE offensive GCD spell that deals 50% less damage to targets after the first. 120 Second cooldown. Consumes 1 Lily & Nourishes the Blood Lily.
- Efflorescence: OGCD Buff that generates 1 Lily and causes your next GCD heal to apply Regen to any/all allies. 90 Second cooldown.
- Germinate: GCD Spell that Nourishes the Blood Lily. Does not consume a Lily. Has a 3 second recast time, delaying the GCD slightly.

Afflatus Propagation does not stack with Dia as it applies Dia, therefore it can be used instead of Dia when you want to consume a Lily or can be used for AoE Dia.

Afflatus Purgation acts as an enhancement to burst damage during buff windows since you also nourish a blood lily from it.

Efflorescence gives you a way to ensure you have lilies when you need them for healing.

Germinate is a DPS loss, but can be used to get your Misery ready during downtime.

Thoughts on something like that?

The DPS Neutral Misery looks like it was to address an issue where it was a DPS loss to use their lilies for healing. Adding in lily spenders that do damage but do no healing seems like it would bring us right back to the same spot. If you can do damage and get a blood lily, a section of the players would take that option every time even if it's detrimental to the team and forces the other healer to pick up the slack.

[ty_taurus]

The DPS Neutral Misery looks like it was to address an issue where players claimed it was a DPS loss to use their lilies for healing. Adding in lily spenders that do damage but do no healing seems like it would bring us right back to the same spot where it would be a DPS loss to heal again because you could both use DPS spells and also get a blood lily. If you can do damage and get a blood lily, a section of the players would take that option every time even if it's detrimental to the team and forces the other healer to pick up the slack.

You're right, but there's a secondary issue of the lilies encouraging overhealing that should also be addressed. However, the idea with Afflatus Propagation is that it replaces your normal use of Dia and is thus taking away that cast beyond the lilies. Because it's a DoT as well with a 60 second cooldown and a 30 second duration, you can't abuse this to squeeze DPS out of Misery. Purgation is likely overkill, but sue me for wanting that beautiful PVP limit break to find a way into PVE content. Also the cooldowns on both actions means you'd be overcapping on lilies if you refused to use them on heals and thus would be losing value, so you definitely still need to heal with your lilies to be playing optimally.

[Semirhage]

It would at least provide interesting tradeoffs with the lily system, though I can see a rabbit hole of endless arguing about efficiency with holding lilies for the damage spell only, the problems inherent with mixing damage and healing resources, etc. It wouldn't be a bad start, but it shares a quibble with Energy Drain: it's got an obvious uneven disadvantage so long as AST and SGE have no opportunity costs, and can just do whatever for free. Still, it's orders of magnitude better choices than "I'll just overheal the currently 100% HP tank between trash packs because that's, silly though it is, the best decision here". I'd also love it if they solved the Glare Glare Glare issue, but I fear that's going to be the last beast we slay if we can even bring them around on it.

[ty_taurus]

It would at least provide interesting tradeoffs with the lily system, though I can see a rabbit hole of endless arguing about efficiency with holding lilies for the damage spell only, the problems inherent with mixing damage and healing resources, etc. It wouldn't be a bad start, but it shares a quibble with Energy Drain: it's got an obvious uneven disadvantage so long as AST and SGE have no opportunity costs, and can just do whatever for free. Still, it's orders of magnitude better choices than "I'll just overheal the currently 100% HP tank between trash packs because that's, silly though it is, the best decision here". I'd also love it if they solved the Glare Glare Glare issue, but I fear that's going to be the last beast we slay if we can even bring them around on it.

The issue is that Energy Drain can be used on theoretically every stack of Aetherflow a SCH generates, but if your damage options have cooldowns, then you know you're getting the most value out of those options so long as you're able to keep them on cooldown. In the case of Propagation as an example, you also don't need to worry about using it during burst windows because you'll get the same damage out of it or Dia regardless of which you use. As long as you're not sitting on 2 stacks, you can use your remaining lilies freely to heal without worry and have Efflorescence to help generate a new lily if you've been managing your existing ones poorly.

[Semirhage]

The issue is that Energy Drain can be used on theoretically every stack of Aetherflow a SCH generates, but if your damage options have cooldowns, then you know you're getting the most value out of those options so long as you're able to keep them on cooldown. In the case of Propagation as an example, you also don't need to worry about using it during burst windows because you'll get the same damage out of it or Dia regardless of which you use. As long as you're not sitting on 2 stacks, you can use your remaining lilies freely to heal without worry and have Efflorescence to help generate a new lily if you've been managing your existing ones poorly.

Good point. I'd actually like these changes; they'd at least show the design team has an awareness of how healers actually play. I mean, given my dream design and role balance I'd love it if WHM either had significant advantages over the other three in its theme areas or got some party utility instead of dedicating itself to being 2/3 of a job (damage, healing, and something else) while not really excelling in the 2/3 it has in exchange for the 1/3 it has gutted out, but that's also another issue entirely

[Yhisa]

What u on about theae white mages changes are soooooooo gooood

20sec on lillies ? Awsome yes please...this means misery every 60sec

Or if ur smart u can save it for the 120sec mega burst window with trick with 2x misery and Pom + glare spamage that 2500 potency is yummy in a 20sec burst window thats alot of damage (im gonna do this even if its not ideal, just to blow stuff up with petals)

Ohh and that mp problem whm have? Yeah thats 100% gone thin air cure 3 or thin air raise, thin air medica......or use lilies with confession

Basically our entire mp bar now is legit for glares only and dia

[Silver-Strider]

That is another awfully negative mindset. Mistakes are inevitable in life, and acknowledging and fixing those mistakes is necessary. So continuing to critique the mistake and ignoring the fix is backwards as heck. It just makes the fixing part seem worthless, so why bother improving. "Anything less than perfection is worthless." But perfection is impossible if you don't start with a few mistakes and fix them. I hope you never raise a child.

I hope to never raise a child either, I genuinely don't have the patience for it but that's neither here nor there.

I can forgive a mistake, if a genuine effort is made to understand WHY that mistake happened. SE has made a LOT of mistakes when it comes to healers and the few fixes that they do toss our way don't feel genuine to me. They feel like something to get us to shut up and nothing else. Take SB, for example. There was a ton of backlash due to the removal of Energy Drain, the horrible Lily System, how weak Noct Sect was, etc so SE gave back ED, did some mild changes to the Lily system at the time as a bandaid and buffed Noct Sect a little bit at a time and we became complacent. Come ShB and they lobotomized healers fully, homogenizing them all to such an extent that healers now share 80% of our toolkits, and we're still actively complaining about how there's nothing to heal, how oversaturated our Healing toolkits are and how we're tired of the 1 button snooze fest that is Healer "rotations". "Complacency is the forerunner of Mediocrity" and Healers are already Mediocre as is so I'm refusing to be complacent this time. Call me negative, call me toxic, call me an ass, I don't care because I'm tired of being treated as a second class citizen in this game and if I have to be labelled as "ungrateful" so be it.

[ty_taurus]

Good point. I'd actually like these changes; they'd at least show the design team has an awareness of how healers actually play. I mean, given my dream design and role balance I'd love it if WHM either had significant advantages over the other three in its theme areas or got some party utility instead of dedicating itself to being 2/3 of a job (damage, healing, and something else) while not really excelling in the 2/3 it has in exchange for the 1/3 it has gutted out, but that's also another issue entirely

Something I'd love to add to each healer as well would be some kind of buff attached to your AoE spell. I'm not a fan of the total separation of Single Target and AoE in this game because very few fights require both. It can be interesting in an example like Tower at Paradigm's Breach's second boss where you have two bosses that sometimes can be hit by AoEs or the Magus Sisters at the Tower of Zot, but beyond that, you always have a few-to-a-handful of buttons that are virtually useless for the entirety of a fight. Finding ways that AoE buttons can be useful during single target as well could help healers out with having more to do during downtime and clearing up hotbar space for DPS. In the case of healers, what I have in mind would be something like:

Holy III: Increases own DPS and healing output by 5% for 45 seconds.
Art of War II: Increases own critical hit chance by 5% for 30 seconds.
Gravity: Decreases own cast time and recast time by 8% for 30 seconds.
Dyskrasia II: Changes with Eukrasia to be 60 potency with a 60 potency DoT for 18 seconds.

[Semirhage]

Something I'd love to add to each healer as well would be some kind of buff attached to your AoE spell. I'm not a fan of the total separation of Single Target and AoE in this game because very few fights require both. It can be interesting in an example like Tower at Paradigm's Breach's second boss where you have two bosses that sometimes can be hit by AoEs or the Magus Sisters at the Tower of Zot, but beyond that, you always have a few-to-a-handful of buttons that are virtually useless for the entirety of a fight. Finding ways that AoE buttons can be useful during single target as well could help healers out with having more to do during downtime and clearing up hotbar space for DPS. In the case of healers, what I have in mind would be something like:

Holy III: Increases own DPS and healing output by 5% for 45 seconds.
Art of War II: Increases own critical hit chance by 5% for 30 seconds.
Gravity: Decreases own cast time and recast time by 8% for 30 seconds.
Dyskrasia II: Changes with Eukrasia to be 60 potency with a 60 potency DoT for 18 seconds.

The changes to RDM's finisher combo made me grin with how simple they were, and how neatly they took care of the dull AOE problem while also not adding another 5 spells in the design space that only see use for trash packs. Where two expansions ago you were stuck on Scatter Scatter Scatter Scatter Scatter Scatter Scatter. I kiiiiind of want to stick whoever is responsible for RDM in a room and give them a crack at healers. Just tell them they're working on a brand new take on RDM from scratch and do a gameshow switcheroo last second, all "HA! Look at that, you were working on a healer this whole time!" When they get good design, they really seem to get it. When they don't, there's so much floundering.