WHM toolkit suggestions and changes (PI and Lily)

[Exiled_Tonberry]

It was already mentioned, but first and foremost, before anything, we need a better way to generate lilies. No other job's guage is counterproductive to the way the job should play, and no matter how much SE wants to push it, a pure healer will simply never be a thing in this game so long as content is designed for all healers to heal it equally. So first they need to move away from this idea of your guage being effected by Cure/II. Change it to regens or even Stones as using elemental attacks is still part of a WHM.

As for what they can do, personally I think Plenary Indulgence is fine. It's duration is way too short though, 15 seconds just like Divine Bension would make more sense. I also think it should reduce enmity while stacks are up, to solve WHMs enmity issues.

As for lilies. Well, I had this idea in my head that two separate types of lilies could be generated. One from healing spells and another set from DPS spells.

The healing lilies could perhaps effect healing potency of your Ogcds which would really fufill that "big healer" identity, while the lilies gained from DPS strengthens your dps spells.
The idea would be to powerup your heals with healing lilies and power up your DPS with DPS lilies (perhaps they could give us a ogcd DPS ability at this point). Using Assize would be the only thing that costs lilies and it would both benefit from healing and DPS lilies. Lilies would no longer reduce CDs and instead we would rely on the trait, secret of the lilies II (which is hopefully more useful at this point >.>) for CD reduction.

It's nothing solid and pretty basic use for the Lily system, but the main draw away is that lilies both need to be generated easier and be more useful than CD reduction.

[EaMett]

In regards to comments about PI being ok. I feel like they're missing the point. WHM's identity is centered around two important abilities. First one is Cure III, second one is HoTs.

HoTs already have a very limiting factor in that unlike shields they are rarely effective healing outside of a very controlled healing environment. WHM has ALWAYS had an issue with HoTs not being able to express themselves and being crushed by other healers (or mehanics that require topoffs). When you medica II for example, it's only worth it if you let your hots tick and this again only happens in very controlled environments.

PI goes absolutely against this as it helps you crush your own hots in many cases. It was never intended to do this in the first place and was patched that way because WHM abilities were a trainwreck. The only reason PI is "ok" currently is specifically because the hots are kinda pointless and that's an issue (or the occasional situation the timer isn't too short but these can be replaced with [spirit consumption]). I'm not saying the skill isn't currently useful, I'm saying it's counter productive for the intended class gameplay. It goes against the class identity.

Also, saying it's intended as a tool for maxing heals in an optimization setting is underwhelming at best for a lvl 70 ability and should definitely not lock us out from an altogether different mechanic with it' own set of opportunities for optimization.

And to close this off. You can't complain about Lily generation rates in a vacuum. You must take into account the trade off from the lily skills. If your 5 lilies allow you to cheese 5 mechanics in the fight, that's going to be about 1/4th of the mechanics in a 9mn fight (at a rate of one every 30 seconds). It's huge.

The current generation rate is absolutely fine considering we have no use for the lilies (ironically). It'll only need readjusting once the lilies actually have a use.

I'd actually argue that your thorns mechanic would actually fall foul of the same issue whilst also being a balancing nightmare. It's likely to be useful in an even narrower band of encounters vs the current PI. In more casual content with minimal aoe it's just not going to amount to anything without ramping the percentages right up which in turn would blow it out of proportion in high end content when the aoes come rolling in.

This is a good remark but also assumes changes to how stacks are generated and how long they last wouldn't be made. The ability to stack on the tank could solve this. The numbers I posted aren't absolute and would need adjusting. The damage taken depending on encounters does vary from 3k for your dungeons to ~7kish for your average savage (15kish for outlyers like god kefka where you're capped by enmity anyways). This gives ample opportunity to make it more useful than PI, even if it won't scale evenly doesn't mean it should be discredited as it is ok for your class to be stronger in some encounters than others, we see this all the time with mobility.

I'll look forward to your take on the gauge though.

[Sebazy]

In regards to comments about PI being ok. I feel like they're missing the point. WHM's identity is centered around two important abilities. First one is Cure III, second one is HoTs.

I guess I should clarify here. I pretty much see PI as a 'front load a bit more potency on my Medica II' in most fights (God Kefka is a special snowflake) with the idea being to save me a second GCD cast somewhere soon. The first few minutes of the new primal are a great example of this. With a barrier beforehand, Asylum+DS+Medica II+PI on the first Spear is enough to get through the spear>gun>reprimand sequence with little to no additional GCD healing from either healer. A SCH can throw in WD, an AST can bubble it for their regen.

The same also works on the final add in phase 2. I drop Asylum down as the stun wears, throw one stone then DS+Medica II and start throwing stones again, Medica II should hit after the first aoe, then hit PI and Assize for the second. Assuming the other healer does 1 aoe barrier, that's all that's needed to get through that regardless of if the group takes 2 or 3 aoes from him.

I use PI in a similar manner throughout various dungeons and such, and whilst it might not be absolutely required to scrape people through a sequence if AoEs in a dungeon. I use it more to make things feel more comfortable for the rest of the group without impacting my Stone throwing like I would throwing an extra Medica.

To expand on my Thorn comments. This method of doing damage was rather popular in Everquest and even with small fixed values rather than percentages, it was still a very important tactic in killing high HP bosses. Simply put, I don't think it's a good enough alternative to be worth the inevitable QA and testing nightmare that it'll raise. SE's testing team is either awful or non existent when it comes to healer stuff and this is only going to end up either being utterly abusable or worthless. Case in point, if we just stick with the 5% for 3 stacks mark, lets say a boss has an aoe mechanic you can fail to eat a 999999 hit, is it failed on an individual level? Can you get LB3 for it? If both of those are a yes, it's very likely you can get a 350k burst out of that 5% shield right there by just suiciding and LB3ing. This would also impact gimmicks such as the last phase of Ultimate Coil. It's just not a good move.

I'm 100% behind tearing up Lilies but PI shouldn't be reworked imho. The fact that Exiled and myself are on near enough the exact same page about this speaks volumes

[EaMett]

I guess I should clarify here.

Multiple things come to mind here. I think first and foremost what I want to say is that it's no surprise that players manage to put PI to good use. This doesn't mean it isn't counter productive to the class though and couldn't be replaced with something more in line with highlighting the WHM toolkit rather than shutting down one of the biggest issues behind medica II which is improper leverage of the HoT's potency. I'm going to go out and a limb and say that your hots in the very fight you describe probably overheal a good 40 if not 50% on that first section. This actually makes me think that [spirit consumption] should use anything above 50% potency of remaining hots to be an effective tool.

Now with that in mind, all your front loading needs could be met with [spirit consumption] above. This would just require a means of generating a lily early on. If you keep potential thorn mechanics you may decide to heal the entire section differently as well.
Also sounds like you're taking most of the healing burden by yourself in your examples. You shouldn't have to use a single GCD on that last add phase. Medica II as he punts everyone and asylum should be enough. Hots and shields alone cover the first intake and indom/star and potential assize deal with the second hit. Third one can be healed after he dies. Actually the entire first phase through adds should probably only require about 1 gcd per healer (during sections where you can dps, not talking about out of bound casting). And that's without considering PI and with a GCD that can be swiftcasted.. It's just that WHM doesn't have much in the way of weaving atm.

To respond to the thorn concern. It would only trigger on damage that does not kill the target. And only on actual damage applied (after shields). Your min-maxing would come in multiple forms. Potentially sacrificing a gcd to set the mechanic up, omit some forms of shielding in exchange for others. maybe everyone takes the dadaluma bleed because chain cure III is more dps efficient than current strats.
I'm not saying there isn't much to take into account. But with relatively low percentages on stacks even the cheesing aspects shouldn't make or break a fight. It might mean WHM is absolutely meta for speedkill in -some- encounters. But that would be amazing since it currently isn't even considered. Somehow I don't share the balance fear you have for this mechanic. Especially not with the current PI timer. Most of the time, at low % of 1 3 5 or maybe lower this would probably only express itself as added (well needed) pdps/rdps from the WHM.