WHM toolkit suggestions and changes (PI and Lily)

[Risvertasashi]

Again, my suggestions nerf healing and up dps. I'm not sure why people are getting the opposite from it. Is it the wording? Or perhaps you weren't talking about me.

It's because you're suggesting turning HoTs into a burst heal. It might be a tomato/tomato kind of thing but to a lot of people that sounds like more healing.

And to belatedly address the thorns suggestion: Problem here is... damage onto tanks is very intermittent and unreliable (in raids). And if it applies to raid hits, well, that could be complete OP in one fight, and near useless in another.

I understand the desire to make lillies useful, but there's an occam's razor approach that wouldn't be situational: Amp up WHM's DPS spells. Since WHM offers no raid buffs (and SE is stubborn about keeping it this way), it seems like it would be reasonable to me that WHM brings the best personal DPS.

[EaMett]

Well assuming you could keep an average of 2 stacks on everyone for the entirety of a fight (which is highly unlikely) and NO shielding was used. You're looking at at a boost of about (average runs, it's lower for speed runs):

170 dps on o5s
280 dps on o6s
225 dps on o7s
300 dps on kefka
480 dps on god kefka
~200 on ex primals.

Given that reaching these numbers is highly unlikely the thorn mechanic will not be OP. If anything I think the % values I gave are on the lower end considering WHM is currently lagging about 300rdps behind the other healers iirc. You would at the very least want to boost WHM pdps by that much.
Also yes, results will vary depending on encounters but this is a great way of keeping separation between healers without forcing them into tank/raid healing roles which SE will not do. The situational aspect isn't that big because we're only talking about a single skill here and one that is somewhat situational to start with (PI).

Food for thought: That some mechanics may be worth cheesing with this is also a great factor. Take the dadaluma bleed for example. If you use 3 gcds (probably 2 more than currently) before it hits and you get everyone to stack for them with 3 confessions. You could up your dps.

With the current setup I gave you're looking at getting about 50k damage off of bleeds alone, and another 17kish damage from other incoming damage over that 60s or so period. This is roughly the equivalent of using about 10-13 stone IVs or 9-11 holy casts in that section, If you can heal the incoming damage with fewer than 7-8GCDs it's going to be a dps gain of however many GCDs you saved.

Another idea: the guardian laser hits for about 35k when shielded (I'm throwing this out without checking but it should be a ballpark figure). 3 stacks at 5% would mean trading probably 1-2 healing gcds (keep swiftcast in mind) for the equivalent of about 2-3 gcds of stone IV

Judging from all the above, the 1, 3, 5% for each stack is probably too low. At those rates even cheesing gives you lackluster dps gain but it goes to show that this wouldn't go wrong as much as some people think.

As an FYI the current confession stack uptime is at it's most about 55% on demanding fights like god kefka. Stacks mostly only once so as is that would be an 88dps increase for whm (if no shields are applied ever). And that's almost double the uptime you would expect in other fights and double the incoming dps. Of course this is considering non optimized play for the thorn mechanic, but if anything, my own thorn suggestion is underwhelming at those percentages of reflective damage.
Should probably be upped to something along the lines of 3,5,7 because otherwise it leads to having to math a lot out to figure out if it's worth it. Should be more straightforward and because we have a 300dps goal over entire fights we have a lot of leeway.

As for the Occam's razor approach. That's basically all we got with stormblood already. Would be nice to actually get some gameplay options rather than the same thing we've had over the last 3 years

It's because you're suggesting turning HoTs into a burst heal. It might be a tomato/tomato kind of thing but to a lot of people that sounds like more healing.

It's an optional, lily locked, burst heal with a potency hit and in an environment where PI no longer exists (would most likely be backloaded instead of frontloaded like PI as well). It's hardly a tomato/tomato thing.

[Rosa_Frandlia]

I think a more valid question, how many other classes have their cap skill only valuable for 1 or 2 fights only? I know demi-bahamut isn't useless. I know that the added aoe of a RM in their melee phase isn't. I know foul isn't for BM's. Isn't that more a question that should be asked?

As it is, our 60 skill has the same cooldown as PI and a higher potency than even when it is at 3 stacks. How is that a cap skill? As a cap skill, there shouldn't be another lower level skill with the same cooldown that is useful in more situations and does more healing. Cast a medica 2 for most of the party, then a tetra for the tank is something I've done for a while if the tank needs it. Another thought, turn it into a full raise or perhaps Raise 2 that revives a person with full health and a 3 minute cooldown similar to Benediction or even 5 minute like Benediction used to have. It would have a uniqueness to it as well and play into the past incarnations of WM.

[Elamys]

Well, to be completely honest, Sleeve Draw is really only useful as another Draw because you don't want to use it without something already in Spread, Minor Arcana is not that amazingly useful, since I rarely end up having a card to sacrifice to it, and most of the time I already have a Royal Road effect prepared when it's ready. It also puts the associated abilities on cooldown, so you have to use it when Draw is already on CD. I still find Fey Union to be clunky to use personally though I understand that it is strong. I guess it's just a thing with healers that our capstone abilities aren't as good as, say, the DPS ones (Foul, Bahamut, Refulgent Arrow...etc)

[NobleWinter]

I would love to replace Plenary Indulgence with a skill called Divine Retribution. It would be an ability on a 90 second cool down that caused all your healing AoE spells to do damage equal to their healing potency for 15 seconds. Medica and Cure 3 would hit hard and Medica 2 would apply a dot. This way you could continue to "DPS" during intense healing phases and truly cement that "Pure Healer" gimmick. White Mages would be the only healer that loses no dps uptime hard casting heals and it would really mesh well with Presence of Mind and Largesse since these would both boost damage and healing simultaneously. The duration and recast time are just random numbers but the ability would be really fun and stay true to the intent of the class I think. It satisfies the need for more pDPS and is useful across all content even without superb optimization. It also doesn't penalize new players for forgetting to use it altogether. Enmity is already an issue so why not get a DPS gain in exchange.

[EaMett]

I really like that actually. Elegant solution.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

This way you could continue to "DPS" during intense healing phases and truly cement that "Pure Healer" gimmick.

When Assize was being talked about I was so excited. I thought "DPSing while healing" would be somewhat of a new gimmick for us.
Assize is still one of the best spells WHM has imo, I really wish they'd play around with this concept of heals that also deal damage more.

[KisaiTenshi]

When Assize was being talked about I was so excited. I thought "DPSing while healing" would be somewhat of a new gimmick for us.
Assize is still one of the best spells WHM has imo, I really wish they'd play around with this concept of heals that also deal damage more.

It's a little more powerful than throwing stone IV at everything within range based on the potency. Hence if you reduce the CD, more DPS is available by using it frequently. Like it's similar to casting Stone IV and Medica at the same time.

When people rip on Lilies, they don't know the consequences of what they're asking for. It's not a limit break button. The healers can not exceed X DPS, or SE will nerf the the DPS skills to bring it back, likewise they can't do more than a certain level of healing, or it will also get nerfed for being unbalanced.

I'd rather see the Lily II mechanic based off "any crit heal" but they clearly did they did so it wouldn't be affected by Crit HoT's. They can't do anything with Lily I without nerfing the entire healing kit to force people to use it to bring it back in balance. It's impossible to balance a mechanic based on RNG, and it's impossible to use something strategically when it's based on RNG.

PI's original implementation was also RNG, making it essentially useless. It's current implementation is better, bit still not super useful unless you're taking so much damage that you've actually needed to cast party heals back-to-back, and since it times out, it's almost never going to have a stack of 3. Like they should just remove the timeout, or have the time out extended for 10 seconds every time a party heal is cast, regardless if it would grant another stack.

As for suggestions about DPS, guys, quit asking for that. SE is not going to make a healer have better DPS than a DPS, so any changes to healer DPS comes at the cost of potency being nerfed across the board, because that is what they did the last time (Lest you forget that they cut half the DPS kit in SB for WHM but not AST.) They removed Cleric Stance stance dance because it was a bad mechanic that turned mistakes into wipes, not because you wanted to DPS. WHM's utility is casting holy on Adds/trash to buy time from the stun, thus it's not useful outside of that specific combat event, and is too expensive to use as a DPS bomb.

And I'm going to repeat this again cause someone will jump the gun. The lilies are not a limit break button. You may not like that it does nothing, but for it to do "something" will come at the cost of something else being taken away, so please think about the consequences of SE getting the idea that you actually want the Lilies to do something more powerful. Like if it made the oCD time lower more often, they would increase the oCD time, or half the potency. Neither of those are good trade offs for being forced to use the Lilies.

[NobleWinter]

I would be perfectly fine if SE decided to Nerf WHM DPS abilities to balance the fact that certain healing skills gained a DPS potency as part of the Cap Stone ability. Putting a Dot on every enemy with Medica 2 in a pack is worth it. Crushing enemies with Cure 3. Also worth it. Having a distinct class feature that separates WHM and AST. All about it! Lilies just aren't cool. Plenary definitely ain't impressing anyone. The Crystal of light really just needs to step in and intervene here.

[EaMett]

Hence if you reduce the CD, more DPS is available by using it frequently. Like it's similar to casting Stone IV and Medica at the same time

When people rip on Lilies, they don't know the consequences of what they're asking for. It's not a limit break button. The healers can not exceed X DPS, or SE will nerf the the DPS skills to bring it back, likewise they can't do more than a certain level of healing, or it will also get nerfed for being unbalanced.

No one is asking for a limit break. Nor is anyone asking for a healing buff. Currently WHM rdps is about 500ish dps behind AST (lets not even get into SCH). Currently the lilies are useless. And yes I'm including a "reduced timer on assize, because you often time it anyways to save yourself a gcd instead of using it on cooldown.

What we're doing here is trying to fill that gap by offering suggestions for the lily mechanic.

I also don't really understand your nerfing talk. WHM didn't get nerfed, it got it's toolkit hacked at which is different. Lilies and PI were supposed to make up for it alas we all know how that turned out.