Idea for variation/abilities for WHM Lilies

[Renathras]

People will probably hate this, but I'm throwing it out anyway:

One of my issues with healer resource spenders is they're LARGELY the same. I can't speak to AST (since I don't play it), but WHM, SCH, and SGE all have essentially a Medica 1 oGCD and a Cure 2-ish oGCD resource spender. For WHM, these are Rapture and Solace. SCH, Indom and Lustrate (and Excog, but on a longer CD). SGE, Ixo and Duro (and Taruo).

I like the identity of WHM as a GCD healer, which it can leverage (albeit without cast times) through Lilies. By being DPS neutral vs Glare, it means you aren't punished for GCD healing on WHM (and can be rewarded if you're able to line up Misery with burst windows or get useful movement using Lilies). Yet we still get the same two basic effects.

So I was thinking, would something like the regen component of Medica 2 (or a lesser variation of that) be a useful future Lily move? It would be nice to have another option to spend the things on, but Regen is already an instant cast (even without feeding the Blood Lily and thus NOT being DPS neutral). Considering WHM is/was focused on being a HoT healer with big but MP expensive raw heals, it would be neat if it had a resource spender that leaned into that. It's odd when you realize SCH and SGE get more use out of their HoTs (Whispering Dawn/Physis) than WHM does out of theirs, largely because Medica 2 and Regen don't interact with Lilies/their Job resource.

I dunno, just thinking they'll need to add new abilities in the next expansion, and I'd rather not have yet ANOTHER Cure 2 variation. And I'd like to actually get to use HoTs more. Always liked rolling HoTs on my WoW Resto Druid, and having an option for that here would be nice.

EDIT:

Before you say it, yes, Rapture and Solace are not oGCDs. I was more noting they are Job resource spenders like SCH/SGE AF/AG spenders, and being DPS neutral puts them in a similar place in WHM's kit. Point is, I think it would be neat to have some Regen kind of Lily spender.

Note I feel the same for the Barrier healers - it boggles my mind how SCH does NOT have an AF spender oGCD shield. WHM has a more reactive barrier (Benison) than SCH does, which is just silly.

[KDSilver]

I like WHM GCD Healer identity as well.
I hope they'll expand lilies further.
However, I'd like WHM to have shield lilies, especially AOE.
It'd be great to avoid overhealing and it could be a great answer to Neutral Sect or even barrier healer capability of using regens.
(to me, barrier vs pure healer is BS)

[Silver-Strider]

After ShB Lilies, I thought they would add Medica 2 and Cure 3 Lily abilities in EW, as well as a Single Target Misery, so to say I was disappointed would be an understatement when they didn't expand the Lily system at all, or even made any QoL changes at all (until 6.1 anyways).

[Liam_Harper]

(to me, barrier vs pure healer is BS)

Agreed. Unless they actually lean into shield healers revolving around shields as gameplay (which I wouldn't mind either) instead of simply being pure healers with added mitigation and a weaker main GCD heal, it'll never be an identity. Just a limitation on which jobs you bring.

SE simply decided on a whim that AST and WHM shouldn't group together in harder content. That's it, that's basically all the shield/regen divide gave us. It's nonsense.

[Renathras]

Agreed. Unless they actually lean into shield healers revolving around shields as gameplay (which I wouldn't mind either) instead of simply being pure healers with added mitigation and a weaker main GCD heal, it'll never be an identity. Just a limitation on which jobs you bring.

SE simply decided on a whim that AST and WHM shouldn't group together in harder content. That's it, that's basically all the shield/regen divide gave us. It's nonsense.

A larger general problem...but I agree.

It's double odd that SCH/SGE comps are entirely viable because of how little they actually USE shielding, and that SGE shields take priority over everything besides Critlo (I think) and Catelyze (which just stacks with everything else anyway). SCH/SGE can heal together with SCH just acting as the "Pure" healer and nothing really changes.

On the other hand, while you can PROBABLY clear most content on WHM/AST, it's a bit more iffy in some clutch situations, and wouldn't be possible on any fight designed to do >100% damage such that it would require barriers.

I get they wanted to make the healers more interesting, but they tried something similar with sort of nudging tanks into MT + OT/support Tank, and that went over like a led balloon. So I have no idea why they think doing it with healers is going to work out any better other than just...not understanding healing, maybe.

[Rilifane]

It feels like another "Players can't be trusted to make good decisions (= the one we want them to make) so we'll take decisions away from them by shoving something down their throats" to me. By explictely stating that they're going to split healers this way and they want to have one healer of each type for content they soft-enforced the rule of shield + regen healer without giving us content that would require such a split.
It's in the same vein as the infamous "We want SCHs to use more AF heals so we'll just delete ED" - and look how well that went.
They can try as they might, they will not get players to play in a way that makes no sense just because they want them to. Diurnal AST/ WHM was extremely strong and largely superior to Noct AST/ WHM. SGE/ SCH is an extremely strong comp and if not the strongest comp on a fight then it's at least 2nd place.
No amount of "But we want you to only play these comps we approve of" is going to change that.

The split didn't make them more interesting. Just stating "Look, we're going to split healers now!", deleting Noct and giving their new shiny toy more regens and burst heals than shields isn't going to make something more interesting.