Minor Idea: White Mage eddition

[ForsakenRoe]

I think the main thing that differentiates this idea from other ideas is that others are more desirous of having more buttons on the bar. So for example, the end result of this idea (that you press a nonGlare button every X Glares) is similar to eg what I've said re: Banish being a 15s CD GCD (thereby making it 'button you press every 6th GCD, or after 5 Glare/Dias). While trying to keep the button count down, it also makes it harder to work with for certain design decisions. For example, the above suggestion I made of Holy building into Purgation. It's still the same button, nothing really changes in AOE in terms of 'how you do the damage as a player'. In fact, due to it being the same button, you may well lose track of your stacks and fire the Purgation while you're positioned in a way that doesn't hit the whole pack. If we were to, for example, have Banish as a separate skill, maybe that could be the skill that upgrades to Purgation for one cast, meaning that in AOE, you'd have an extra button to use instead of just pressing Holy till the cows come home.

In fact, can you do me a favor and reread the old idea for me:

Plenary Indulgence moved to level 74
Afflatus Rapture moved to level 70 (now available in UCOB!)

New skill: Stoneskin (learned at 52 alongside lily gauge), GCD that puts a shield on the target equal to 300p heal, costs 1 lily
New skill: Afflatus Tragedy (learned at 62 just because there's a gap there), basically a downgrade from Misery, does 800p damage (4 stone3's is 880 so its a small loss still), this is just to help new players get into the idea of 'use lilies, get big hit that compensates the lost dps', upgrades to Misery at 76
New skill: Afflatus Bastion (upgrade from Stoneskin at 70), increases the shield from 300 to 400p
New skill: Afflatus Sanctuary (Learned at level 70 alongside Afflatus Rapture), GCD that shields all nearby party members equal to 200p healing, costs 1 lily

By keeping the potencies on the shields low, it lets the 'shield healers' be more specialised at shielding, but still giving WHM options to shield if it absolutely has to

Returning skill: Divine Seal (learned at 40), 2min CD that buffs healing actions by 20%, so 'Temperance without the damage mitigation', becomes Temperance at 80
Returning skill: Protect (learned at 10 or something), 60s CD that gives 5% damage mitigation for 8sec, upgrades to 10% with a trait called Shell at 66, again into Aquaveil at 86

Returned from the dead skill: Fluid Aura (now named Water), now an instant cast GCD with a seperate 15 second recast (affected by spellspeed), scaling damage like Stone, becomes Banish at Glare/Dia levels, does more damage than Stone/Glare equivalent at any given level (say Glare3 is 310, maybe this could be 350?)

Aero/Dia changed to be 12 seconds duration, potency adjusted to balance, to mix up how often we're using Glare vs Dia (and to give the rotation a more 'bursty' feel) edit: 150 + 70per tick would total 430, while still keeping the base damage of the cast low to prevent spamming early application

A new HUD element, the 'Nature Gauge' (name is WIP), a simple 0-100 gauge that fills by doing certain actions. Stone/Glare gives 1 point. Aero/Dia gives 1 point on cast, and 1 per tick (5 total over full duration). Water would give 5 due to being used less often than Stone. Holy is 'Each enemy hit by Holy grants 2 gauge' so bigger pulls = more gauge

New skill: Blessing of the Elementals, AOE GCD heal, instant cast, same AOE size as Medica2, 500p, costs 50 gauge. Grants 'Rage of the River, Ire of the Earth and Wrath of the Winds' upon use (these effects can stack up to twice), each allowing one cast of Flood, Quake and Tornado respectively.

Quake: 410p compared to Glare3's 310p, has 50% damage falloff for AOE
Flood: 450p compared to Banish's 350p, has 50% damage falloff for AOE
Tornado: 180p, plus 90 per tick to main target, compared to reworked-Dia's 150+70, has 50% falloff for both cast and DOT effect for AOE

If I recall, the main concern with this was that people would be forced to do damage to get access to the new gauge skill. So I've been thinking, screw it, if people want to gimp their damage on healing why not let them, it'll help in enrage sequences like Curtain Call anyway, so I'm adding a new section:

Cure1 evolves into Cure2, Medica evolves into Medica2. Cure 2 generates 5 Nature Gauge on cast. Regen generates 4 Nature Gauge on cast, and 1 Nature Gauge per tick (total 10, only counts one Regen tick, multi-HOTting does not increase rate). Medica 2 generates 0 per player hit, and 3 per tick (total of 15 over full duration). Cure 3 generates 10 Nature Gauge on cast. Additionally, when Medica 2's HOT effect is present on the WHM, the MP cost of Cure 3 is halved (from 1500 to 750), to encourage using it over just spamming Medica 2 over and over (as it'd be changed to 400p, plus 5 ticks of 100p due to combining with Medica 1).

That should at least fix the 'forced to do damage to access cool new thing' issue, right, and while I'm adding one button for damage, I'm also adding like 5 or 6 that are specifically 'designated for healing, or HPS throughput, or mitigation'

[Renathras]

In fact, can you do me a favor and reread the old idea for me:

Sorry, missed this til now.

1) Plenary moved to 74 is fine, but I personally like the idea of it upgrading from Protect better.

2) Rapture at 70 would be nice as well.

3) Stoneskin being based on Lilies is kinda...meh. I would rather just see a castable one, though having a Lily spender for when everyone's at max health wouldn't go amiss, so I'm neutral on this one, but leaning towards okay with it.

4) Lower level Misery should be much lower. I would arguably put it at 30 or 35, and have WHM learn Solace at 30. This would cement the way Lilies/Misery work early and mix up the lower level rotation more. At highest, I'd swap it with Stoneskin.

5) Bastion is just an upgrade, so it's fine.

6) Sanctuary is a nice idea. In a reverse of how SCH and SGE have a 400p party heal with their AF/AG resource, WHM gets an AOE Succor/Eu Prognosis. Seems fair to me.

7) I've agreed with this idea for Divine Seal for a while.

8) Is Protect in this sense single target or AOE? Again, I think it should be AOE like Plenary.

9) I've never liked Fluid Aura so I don't care much for this. We already have Assize, just make Assize lower level or a lower CD, or have FA be a lower level Assize. We don't need another oGCD damage ability used on CD. And I already told you what I think Water should be.

10) Aero/Dia - hate this with a passion. The thing I hated most about Healers in ARR, the single thing I hated, was how short the DoT durations were. I already hate DoTs, so making them EVEN MORE annoying is a hard no from me and always will be. I'd rather have a 15 sec GCD like Plegma that stacks to 2 than a DoT in general, but especially an even SHORTER DoT that I have to fiddle with even MORE often.

11) Do we really need another gauge? People complain all the time about Faerie Gauge just existing in service to one ability, and this is just that again. Moreover, I generally hate the aesthetic of "nature" spells unless I'm playing a Druid type class, which WHM is not (really, it's not; CNJ is, Druid would be, Geomancer would be, but that's a separate issue). But even ignoring that, this screams Faerie Gauge. The second problem here is that this is basically SMN after Bahamut/Phoenix, and quite a few people cite that as one of the big problems with SMN right now, why missing burst is such a fail, and why death for them sucks so hard. Doing that with WHM seems ripe for all kinds of problems. And then...

12) An AOE Glare (but we already have Holy for that), an AOE Assize (but we already have...Assize...for that), and an AOE Dia (well, at least that's one we don't already have, I guess...); two out of three we already have, so these are kind of just redundant, and WHM already has so much redundant abilities. The last one is especially irksome because...well...DOTS. Seriously; hate DoTs...especially ones that don't interact with the kit, and this one doesn't. Though I do commend you for thinking of a way to make Dia DoT ticks at least mildly interact with the kit.

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The sad thing is, I'd LIKE this DPS rotation...on a DPS Job. And I don't mean that sarcastically. A DPS Job which had a basic nuke, a basic upkeep DoT with a short duration (every 4th GCD in single target), an oGCD 4x per minute, builds a gauge by taking any of those actions, spends 50 gauge probably at the 1 min mini-burst mark and 100 gauge (2x cycles of the big damage) during 2 min big burst phases. The burst consisting of one big hit, one big oGCD, and one big DoT spread, which each stacking twice. In the burst you'd lead in with Blessing, (having used one some time before getting to your 100 cap again for burst), then with the DoT (Tornado), weave Flood into Quake, Flood and Quake again, (now you have 0 Flood, 0 Quake, 1 Tornado remaining), Blessing again, weave Flood into Quake, Tornado again to snapshot under the burst, then get back to your normal Stone/Aero rotation until Tornado wears off, and then cast it again to refresh that DoT as well.

Throw in some extra stuff like a damage boost ability, a Thundercloud proc, and something like Infuriate to get 50 gauge and that would be a pretty fun DPS Job.

If they added Geomancer to the game with that, I think I'd like the Job a lot. Make it branch from CNJ and I'd have a field day with that.

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Just because you lack the mental bandwidth doesn't mean everyone lacks the mental bandwidth.

Which is why there are other Healers. Yay!