Healer Suggestions Megathread

[Sebazy]

(Also, I believe WHM was MP-negative back in 4.0, so they'd never actually hold Lucid to halve enmity where it mattered and just get rolled by the Earthshaker anyway.)

It was primarily a case of timing your first Shroud usage to a specific point and time in the fight earlier than was ideal to ensure that your subsequent shrouds aligned with when you wanted to dump Enmity later on. After that first early cast you’d still be using it on cooldown. So it’s less a case of holding it and more a case of remembering to press it earlier than you typically would at the start of the fight.

The way in which the Tankbusters so neatly aligned with shrouds timing after that initial early cast defo makes me think one was designed with the other in mind.

[Aravell]

It was primarily a case of timing your first Shroud usage to a specific point and time in the fight earlier than was ideal to ensure that your subsequent shrouds aligned with when you wanted to dump Enmity later on. After that first early cast you’d still be using it on cooldown. So it’s less a case of holding it and more a case of remembering to press it earlier than you typically would at the start of the fight.

The way in which the Tankbusters so neatly aligned with shrouds timing after that initial early cast defo makes me think one was designed with the other in mind.

I actually never knew that it lined up neatly, I wasn't very good at WHM back then so I usually end up popping Lucid when my MP is low, which (funnily enough) is right after I get flattened by an Earthshaker. That's interesting to know though.

[Post]

Shroud (and WHM) very intentionally had aggro reduction while SCH did not have access to it at all until StB.

This is because much of SCH's healing Enmity was filed away in its shields and its Faerie, who dealt a considerably larger portion of healing and had it's own aggro table (I'd say I miss being able to direct adds to the tank using the Faerie, but I miss adds in boss fights at all at this point).

I want to say the first boss where aggro was 100% an issue for the WHM was t9 because it demanded a lot of AoE healing and Nael would go on vacation for so long during the Golems and Speed Stardusts, so WHM would routinely have the aggro by her return if they used Shroud in a dumb way. SCH didn't have this issue. But, as Sebazy pointed out, AST absolutely did, if you tried it out in this fight, and that's why it got the baked in aggro reduction to its Sects later. Turns out just putting the aggro reduction on its MP generator didn't quite work as well as the setup on Shroud for this, because one would only affect a few heals proactively instead of all actions retroactively.

That difference was probably as intentionally arbitrary as the way all 4 tanks get different parts of their kits at different levels --just so they seem more different on paper.

Nowadays, aggro management for everyone is as simple as one tank remembering to put their stance on at the pull, and for the others to remember to put theirs on at some point so when MT dies the boss doesn't go over and kill your poor BLM, or for tanks to remember provoke when they get raised so they're the second tankbuster target. Because of this, sometimes bosses just always attack the tank roles in the fight, something BLU players will discover to their delight in a few years!

Also, nowadays, no matter what I queue as, I always end up soaking the tankbuster in 24 mans while frantically spamming please provoke in chat. What a long way we've come!

[TheDustyOne]

So I had slight idea of "what if WHM healed in the same way that BLM does damage?" where you swap between Healer Stance and Cleric Stance. Using a healing spell puts you in Healer Stance and nourishes the Blood Lily or gives procs, while using Banish III puts you back in Cleric Stance to let you regain MP and spend those lilies and procs.

The stances have no timers involved, this should make it less stressful to play compared to BLM, but gives a similar gameplay style that focuses more on a healing/damaging dichotomy.

Stances:

Cleric Stance: This stance lets you build Justification stacks and use Glare and Misery. Also increases MP regen by 300%. You enter this stance by casting Banish under no stance, or Banish III while in Healer Stance
Healer Stance: This stance lets you nourish the Blood Lily and the Epiousian proc as you heal, and reduces the cast time of damage spells by 75%. You can enter this stance by using any healing spell.

Damage Spells:

Banish
Spell -- 0 MP -- 2s Cast time
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 200
Grants Cleric Stance or removes Healer Stance
Grants 3 stacks of Justification while under the effect of Cleric Stance
40% chance next Banish III will have no cast time while under the effect of Cleric Stance

The Fire counterpart, complete with not-Firestarter

Dia
Spell -- 0 MP -- 0s Cast time -- 30s Recast time -- 2 charges
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 400 for the first enemy, and 30% less for all remaining enemies.
*Changes to Dia III while under the effect of Epiousian*
*Shares a recast timer with Dia III*

The Xenoglossy/Foul counterpart

Dia III
Spell -- Epiousian -- 0s Cast time -- 30s Recast time -- 2 charges
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 600 for the first enemy and 30% less for all remaining enemies.
Grants 3 stacks of Justification while under the effect of Cleric Stance
40% chance next Banish III will have no cast time while under the effect of Cleric Stance
*Cannot be placed on the hotbar*
*Shares a recast timer with Dia*

Xenoglossy but with a refund attached.

Glare
Spell -- 1 Justification -- 3s Cast time
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 300
Can only be used under the effect of Cleric Stance

I can't believe it's not Fire IV

Banish III
Spell -- 0 MP -- 3.5s Cast time
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 260 for the first enemy, and 30% less for all remaining enemies.
Grants 3 stacks of Justification while under the effect of Cleric Stance (does not grant stacks when swapping from Healer to Cleric)
Grants Cleric Stance and removes Healer Stance

I can't believe it's not Fire III, cast time is reduced by 75% while in Healer Stance as well.

Afflatus Misery
Spell -- 1 Blood Lily -- 0s Cast time -- 60s Recast time
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 540 for the first enemy and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
Potency increases up to 1140 as Blood Lily exceeds minimum cost
Grants 3 stacks of Justification
40% chance next Banish III will have no cast time
Can only be used under the effect of Cleric Stance

Still a refund, but also acts as something like a Paradox equivalent.

Healing Spells:

Cure II
Spell -- 2000 MP -- 3s Cast time
Restores target's HP with a potency of 900
Grants the effect of Healer Stance, increasing MP cost of spells and nourishing the Blood Lily
Nourishes the Blood Lily while under the effect of Healer Stance

Cure III
Spell -- 2500 MP -- 3s Cast time
Restores own HP and HP of all nearby party members with a potency of 650
Grants the effect of Healer Stance
Nourishes the Blood Lily while under the effect of Healer Stance

Regen
Spell -- 1000 MP -- 0s Cast time
Restores target's HP with a potency of 300
Grants the effect of Healer Stance
Grants healing over time to target with a potency of 300, 15s
Grants the effect of Epiousian while under the effect of Healer Stance, allowing the use of Dia III, 30s

Regen III
Spell -- 2000 MP -- 2s Cast time
Restores own HP and HP of all nearby party members with a potency of 100
Grants the effect of Healer Stance
Grants healing over time to self and nearby party members with a potency of 200, 12s
Grants the effect of Epiousian while under the effect of Healer Stance, allowing the use of Dia III, 30s

Esuna
Spell -- 1000 MP -- 0s Cast time
Removes a single detrimental effect from self or target party member
Grants the effect of Healer Stance
Grants the effect of Epiousian while under the effect of Healer Stance, allowing the use of Dia III, 30s

Esuna III
Spell -- 2000 MP -- 2s Cast time
Removes a single detrimental effect from self and all nearby party members
Grants the effect of Healer Stance
Grants the effect of Epiousian while under the effect of Healer Stance, allowing the use of Dia III, 30s

Raise
Spell -- 4000 MP -- 8s Cast time
Resurrects target in a weakened state
Grants the effect of Healer Stance
Nourishes the Blood Lily while under the effect of Healer Stance

I don't plan to expand on this idea, I just thought it was a fun experiment.

[ty_taurus]

So I had slight idea of "what if WHM healed in the same way that BLM does damage?"

The fact that you didn't go with Astral Earth and Umbral Water is a sin.

[Shurrikhan]

I don't plan to expand on this idea, I just thought it was a fun experiment.

Feels like it'd need higher healing requirements to see the benefits, but if the potency for the 3s casts were actually increased to match its additional uptime cost, the massive cast speed increases to healing spells after damage spells and damage spells after healing spells could be decent.

Not wanting to cast multiple heals or attacks at a time, when avoidable, doesn't really shout "WHM" to me, but at the same time, I could imagine a sense in which it fits.

So far as quick experiments go, pretty neat!

[TheDustyOne]

The fact that you didn't go with Astral Earth and Umbral Water is a sin.

See, I had thought of that, but while leveling, all the elemental spells would've been under Astral Earth, so there'd ironically be no water spells under Umbral Water. In my mind for this, Stone would Upgrade to Glare, Water to Banish (and Water III to Banish III), and Aero to Dia. I opted for Cleric and Healer because Cleric is historically used in game as the "I do DPS now" thing. The names are admittedly not very inspiring.

It's also worth noting for the flow is that, unlike BLM where you swap between Ice/Fire regularly, here you only swap between them when healing is necessary. You'll spend most of your time in Cleric Stance, and when you have party members at lower health (or soon to be low health), you just use a healing spell, ideally up to 3 different heals to top up people, then swap back and use Misery ASAP to refund that damage. The loss for not using Misery and "holding onto it for more blood stacks" is because each time you swap back to Cleric, you lose about 40 potency from Banish III compared to Glare. It's why Misery has that odd number of 540/1140.

Also if someone could double-check my math on that, that'd be great, I fully expect the potency values to be off entirely, but I think you guys get the idea of how this would flow.

Misery having a 60s cooldown was also to discourage constant topping up; you want to get as much use out of it as possible, so this WHM is much riskier in how it heals in that you want people to be low before doing any healing. Although I'd be fine with reducing it to about 40s instead if that made it a little more forgiving.

The native MP regen in Cleric is around 800 MP per tick, so 3 Cure IIs is about 8 ticks, or 24 seconds. The idea would be to let people get as low as you're willing to risk before patching them back up quickly, building up stacks for the damage phase similar to how a BLM would build up Umbral stacks.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[sexy rework]

Gimme all these. Please.

Also just wanna say: your theorycrafted damage kits for WHM in the past had quite some similarities with mine I’m almost ashamed to drop mine ;;

I know you said you weren’t going to expand it, but I’m looking forward to see more should you change your mind Fun read!

[TheDustyOne]

I may or may not be expanding on it already. I can't help it, BLM-but-healer sounds like fun.

I've already got some changes written down in my notes, one was to make Banish also swap to Cleric (I've renamed the stances in my notes) so even though it's a damage loss compared to Banish III, it's not as punishing as say, fat-fingering Fire while in Umbral Ice. I'm also going to do something sacrilegious and keep Freecure where Cure I remains, but costs no MP, has a 40% chance to make Cure II/III have no cast time or MP cost, and doesn't charge the blood lily (Cure II/III still charges it of course). It keeps a healing option available even when MP runs out, especially since my WHM is much more mana hungry.

I'm also unsure if I want to make Misery completely damage neutral. If I make the heals more MP intensive than even what I had listed earlier, then I think it's fine for it to remain damage neutral. If it's too easy to just consistently top up and spam Misery without much consequence, then I think it should be at least a small loss or have a cooldown attached. A higher MP cost to the heals but having Cure and Medica be free without blood lily I think is enough justification for removing the Misery cooldown.

The other thing I also have planned that wasn't in my earlier post is making Thin Air remove 3s off cast times and for Banish III to shave off 5s from Dias cooldown. It makes the proc from Banish a little more interesting I feel. I was also thinking of removing the Justification stacks from Banish III to make it more usable as a movement tool, but that may make it feel a little less interesting, so I'm willing to revert that change.

Apart from that, it's mostly just brainstorming oGCD abilities.

[ty_taurus]

I had an interesting set of ideas on White Mage that I can share. A huge aspect to these changes involves balancing MP costs and recovery, so take numbers with a grain of salt.

Lily Changes
- Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture no longer have a lily cost; instead, they cost 1200 MP and 1800 MP respectively. While lilies are available, this MP cost is negated, and a lily is automatically consumed. Additionally, Raise now upgrades into Afflatus Arise, which remains 2400 MP cost, but also has that cost negated by lilies. All of these nourish the blood lily whether a regular lily is spent or not. Afflatus Harmony also is a new spell that has no MP cost, restores 800 MP, and nourishes the blood lily, but this spell does require a lily to be cast.
- Lilies now generate one per 40 seconds instead of 20, but you'll be able to generate more lilies through another means.

DPS Changes
- The main focal point of these changes is a rework to Holy, but for now, let me establish the basics.
- We'll be using a potency of 340 for Stone/Glare as a reference point. Stone/Glare spells return to having a 2 second cast time. Every 3 casts of Stone/Glare spells now generates a gold lily, to a maximum of 3. This would represented with a very simple addition to the healing gauge which could look something like this:

- Every cast lights up one petal on this flower, and when all three are lit up, the flower glows, and a gold lily blooms at the end of the healing gauge's cane. These lilies will do one of two things.
- Aero/Dia is reworked and is no longer a DoT. These spells have the same potency as Stone/Glare spells and deal 50% less damage to enemies adjacent to your target. They are still instant, and now have an 800 MP cost. Additionally, Thin Air no longer has a cooldown. Instead, each time you cast Aero/Dia spells with a gold lily present, the lily is consumed and 1 charge of Thin Air is automatically generated to a max of 3. Thin Air can only be generated through this method.
- Water spells are added and upgrade to the Tempest spell at level 72. These attacks deal AoE damage with a potency of 180 and are ranged. They also grant you 30 seconds of a personal MP refresh (100 MP per tick) that can be extended to as much as 60 seconds. Additionally, Water/Tempest spells can consume 1 gold lily to bloom 1 regular lily to use for healing. This MP regen will be important for the next main point.
- Holy is now 560 potency that deals 60% less damage to enemies after the first, costs 1000 MP, and has a 3 second cast time and retains its 4 second stun. Additionally, the Freecure trait is reworked to where casting any non-Afflatus healing spells makes your next Holy cost 0 MP.

Overall, this isn't a fully fleshed out concept, just some general ideas floating around in my head. I added numbers here, but the TL;DR of the idea in my mind is trying to make holy this really powerful, slow-cast nuke that you're revolving resources around to use as much as you can, where the engagement factors comes into play with a far more loose rotation that allows you to be more greedy or more frugal. It's still very simple, only adding 1 attack, but gives you a lot more freedom to use your MP the way you want. Stone/Glare spells are your neutral that help generate added effects on your Aero/Dia spells to grant more mobility and your Water/Tempest spells to grant more MP recovery and healing. Again, not a super developed concept, and the numbers are very placeholder, but if the idea sounds clever, perhaps it's something that could be expanded upon.