Benediction

[Fiend]

Although I personally believe that benediction is a very powerful ability and doesn’t need to have its overall recast lowered I do think it should be reworked. The main complaints that players seem to be making are that the effect takes too long to apply, useful only when someone is on the brink of death, and that it can’t be used strategically within 8-man dungeons (compared to HG/Holmgang). Instead of reducing recast to point where it essentially becomes lustrate like what OP is suggesting I propose that benediction be changed so its recast varies depending on the amount of HP remaining on the target.

HP Remaining:

100 - 81% = 1 minute
80 - 61% = 2 minutes
60 - 41% = 3 minutes
40 - 21% = 4 minutes
20 – 1% = 5 minutes

By changing it to this benediction still has the same max recast of 5 minutes and in order to get the most out of the ability players will still need to use it at the last possible moment. However, this will now give WHMs more breathing room where it wouldn’t feel like a waste if they decided to use it at a “oh crap” moment instead of a “oh sh*t.” Furthermore, if the party member ends up dying and you accidentally cast it on yourself at full HP the recast is only 1 minute instead of the current 5. Finally, although benediction can already be used for healing while on the move or during some type of healing magic debuff the penalty is no longer as severe and can be used more strategically instead of sitting on a hotbar waiting in case of an emergency.

[Menae]

Benediction is fine at 5 minutes. It's a very powerful CD - restoring somebody from near death to full is inherently more powerful than restoring them from near death to 25%, then from 25% to 50%, then 50% to 75%. You also have to keep in mind that you can have two WHM in an 8 man. Imagine Benediction on a 1-2 minute CD in that case - you'd break a ton of mechanics. T8 Dreadnaughts/Mines? Benediction. T9 Ravensbeak? Benediction. T9 Ravensbeak explosion? Benediction. Death Sentence? Benediction. You have to give some leeway to the encounter designers - if they know you CAN burst heal the tank to full once every minute or two, they have to assume you WILL, and that eliminates options for them in creating fights.

I do like Fiend's idea, though I'm not sure how easy it'd be to code, and it's probably not the easiest thing to put in a tooltip.

Honestly, my biggest wish for Benediction would just be that it refreshes (along with every other long CD) on a boss wipe. Nothing like trying to save a tank and realizing Bene's still on CD from the LAST attempt.

[Estellios]

That recast idea is pretty nice.

I'm pretty liberal with Benedictions now, it's better to use it than not use it IMO and getting into the habit of using it takes some getting used to. Best example I can give is Levi EX in the 2nd half during his dives. If someone gets hit by a dive or Grand Fall, are in the range of another dive, and doesn't look like they will make it out in time I pop benediction. Better to be safe than sorry as even if they manage to get out of the way in time, it's worth it considering the risk involved when someone is dead during a slam.

I don't mind the delay but I'd like it to not get used up if the target dies "mid-cast".

[Enesuia]

Benediction used to be a 2 hour ability in final fantasy xi. So 5 mins is just fine by me. lol Thought that's just my experience from transferring out of FFXI into FFXIV 1.0+ lol That spell is powerful, being less than 5 minutes is a bit too much. Only thing I do have a problem with it-- as well as some other spells. I don't know if this is intentional or it never been addressed. Though it takes quite a delay to do it's job when cast. I've seen it go off and heal the player targeted and yet fail, as it has like a 1.8 seconds delay in between the instant cast and healing the hit points. That make it not really a "Instant" Same with "Hallowed Ground".

So Benediction is pretty good as it is, excluding the awful cast on it and getting the hit points "Instantly" ;__;

[Cynfael]

5 min is too long. Benediction is powerful, but not so much so that it deserves that kind of cooldown. SE sometimes forgets that overly long cooldowns just aren't fun. It's like getting 50 DRG and finding out that your super-cool, non-gamebreaking Dragonfire Dive is on 3 minute cooldown.

If you're going to make players wait 5 or more minutes for skill reuse, it needs to be a game-changing strategy. Full heal sounds like (and is) a strong ability, but not so much stronger than what can be accomplished every minute with Swiftcast if so desired. Healing a tank from nothing to full is great, but usually the tank isn't in serious trouble unless the party is in trouble already. Benediction is fairly useless if everything goes according to plan, actually.

[monochromicorn]

If you're going to make players wait 5 or more minutes for skill reuse, it needs to be a game-changing strategy. Full heal sounds like (and is) a strong ability, but not so much stronger than what can be accomplished every minute with Swiftcast if so desired. Healing a tank from nothing to full is great, but usually the tank isn't in serious trouble unless the party is in trouble already. Benediction is fairly useless if everything goes according to plan, actually.

have you read anything thats been said? have you healed? benediction's cooldown is extremely justified and perfect the way it is. it balances out. you shouldnt have to use benediction. if someone suck so bad at healing that they need to use benny every 2-3 minutes, they shouldnt heal that fight, its that simple. benny is designed for emergency use, not full heal whenever i feel like it

[Leon_Stormrage]

have you read anything thats been said? have you healed? benediction's cooldown is extremely justified and perfect the way it is. it balances out. you shouldnt have to use benediction. if someone suck so bad at healing that they need to use benny every 2-3 minutes, they shouldnt heal that fight, its that simple. benny is designed for emergency use, not full heal whenever i feel like it

............. ^ this

[Cynfael]

have you read anything thats been said? have you healed? benediction's cooldown is extremely justified and perfect the way it is. it balances out. you shouldnt have to use benediction. if someone suck so bad at healing that they need to use benny every 2-3 minutes, they shouldnt heal that fight, its that simple. benny is designed for emergency use, not full heal whenever i feel like it

Not sure what's up with the hostility here, but okay. If you had read what I actually said, your take away would have been that I was pointing out that overly long cooldowns aren't as fun for gameplay except in the case of game-changers (e.g. party full heal vs. single target) and that Benediction is overkill except when things go horribly wrong, anyway.

[Hollowed]

The reason "some" of us want this on a shorter CD is because for a 5min CD (currently the MAX) its really weak, should you rely on it? Hellz no, but, the fact its on such a long CD motivates you to NOT use it. Longer CD = You dont want to use it often, and as a few people said earlier, if all goes the way it should you wont use it, i personally never have to use it in any content even T9. Fact is, for 5min CD, it sucks, DS cure II crit is almost just as powerful. At the very least make it an actual instant ability, using it when you need it is fine, but when it fails to proc in time cause I have to dance a stupid circle and the PT member dies and NOW i have to wait 5min sucks, it sucks D:

[Sorata]

The reason "some" of us want this on a shorter CD is because for a 5min CD (currently the MAX) its really weak, should you rely on it? Hellz no, but, the fact its on such a long CD motivates you to NOT use it.

he whole reason for the long CD is so we CAN’T use it often, not to make you don’t WANT to use it often. If you are an excellent WHM who doesn’t require to use Benediction 99.9% of the time, then why don’t you use it every 5 minute as a replacement of Cure to save yourself some MP. The skill is usable in any circumstances, it’s the mentality of “I want to save this” that prevent you from using it. But clearly, you don’t have that problem (shit never hits the fan for you to require for this skill), or you are not a risk taker (never get to use it because you always want to save for the more serious scenario). In that case, I suggest to use it as a more powerful Cure II, nothing wrong with that.

I do agree with everyone that the animation needs to go, there should be a no delay of this skill as it should be an instant cast. We’ve been crying about this since 2.0, I really hope it will get implemented soon.