WHM toolkit suggestions and changes (PI and Lily)

[Valmaxian]

More suggestions (sorry if there are repeats!)

1. Lilies should have a 100% chance to generate on heals/damage spells. None of this RNG garbage. I play AST for that because at least the RNG is really shiny.
2. Lilies will unlock something really cool and worth the effort. One suggestion: Bravery/Faith. Let's do this:

Bravery
Instant Cast
30s recast
0 MP
Range 25y, 0y

Boosts melee/ranged damage/reduces damage taken by 10, 15, 20% (depending on Lily stacks).

Faith
Instant Cast
30s recast
0 MP
Range 25y, 0y

Boosts magic damage/healing potency by 10, 15, 20% (depending on Lily stacks).

FIGHT!

[miraidensetsu]

Liked it. I would add also:

Protect
Instant Cast
30s recast
0 MP
Range 25y, 0y, single-target

Reduces physical damage taken by 10, 15 or 20% (depending on Lily stacks) for 12 seconds.


Shell
Instant Cast
30s recast
0 MP
Range 25y, 0y, single-target

Reduces magical damage taken by 10, 15 or 20% (depending on Lily stacks) for 12 seconds.

And rename "our" current Protect to "Wall", take off the damage reduction from Bravery/Faith and remove Divine Benison to add both.

[EaMett]

I think damage reduction is a no go for WHM. I also think raid buffs are the same.
It's been asked time and time again over years and SE has never acknowledged it. They begrudgingly gave us DB with a huge RNG and mechanical wall and eventually caved in and gave use the currently version. I suspect this only happened because they completely screwed up every stormblood whm ability and had to make up somehow.

[Valmaxian]

Snip

I definitely understand your pessimism, but I think its still possible for WHM to get some form of raid utility. Giving WHM something like Bravery/Faith, whether via lilies or not, could be something between 70-80. Its is going to HAVE to happen at some point - there are only so many ways even a "pure healer" can heal, and there are SO MANY cool WHM spells in the FF lore that are untapped potential.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I think damage reduction is a no go for WHM. I also think raid buffs are the same.
It's been asked time and time again over years and SE has never acknowledged it. They begrudgingly gave us DB with a huge RNG and mechanical wall and eventually caved in and gave use the currently version. I suspect this only happened because they completely screwed up every stormblood whm ability and had to make up somehow.

I always found it funny how WHM just absolutely can not have mitigation or raid utility, but SCH can get regens and utility just fine.
I still think giving SCH chain strategem was the worst thing they could have ever done.

[NobleWinter]

Can you elaborate more on why Chain Stratagem is such a terrible idea? Scholar always had Fey Wind as a party buff and their lore designates them as a military tactician so a raid wide buff makes sense to me. Astrologians have a wide array of arguably more effective Party Buffs and White Mage has a grand super focused healing toolkit. They all seem to have their niche to me. WHM just has a wacky Lily System and irrelevant Traits.

[Sebazy]

Thematically it fit fine with the SCH's kit and frankly, with the state that SCH got left in upon 4.0's release, it was the strongest bit of their new kit even if they didn't realise it yet.

The problem is that now SCH has been fixed and mostly put back to where it was before, it just further cements it's dominance over the barrier slot. There is very little tangible reason to bring Noct AST over a SCH once you factor in the overall DPS loss due to it making things harder on your other healer.

[Elamys]

Can you elaborate more on why Chain Stratagem is such a terrible idea? Scholar always had Fey Wind as a party buff and their lore designates them as a military tactician so a raid wide buff makes sense to me.

It was only a terrible idea because Scholar was already so strong. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's stronger than any of AST's cards, short of getting Balance after Balance after Balance.

White Mage can be a pure healer and still bring utility for the party. Be it their own damage or buffing the rest of the raid. It needs to bring something unique. This super Pure Healer thing isn't working out. WHM is certainly far from garbage or useless or being excluded from raids, but at a certain point it does get hard to argue why you'd bring one when you reach a point where you need more damage than healing.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Can you elaborate more on why Chain Stratagem is such a terrible idea?

It creates a problem where 2 jobs in a role have utility and one doesn't, similar to how WAR/PLD has aoe mitigation and DRK doesn't, which hurts them.
It singles out the only one that doesn't have access to such utility, except in WHMs case, it has nothing else to make up for this lack of utility now that AST is stronger than a WHM in personal DPS as well.

I know people love to say WHM has high heals as it's utility, but I can't stress enough that the fight design in this game makes this fact redundant. Every fight can be healed with any composition. SE specifically designed fights to meet this standard. So when you say WHM has better healing, you have to wonder how useful that actually is when it was already possible to heal everything without a WHM.

[NobleWinter]

I think we over estimate the "healing" ability of AST and SCH because we know that it's "possible" for them to clear every fight. I don't do much high end raiding and therefore my parties consist of mostly less skilled people. The effectiveness of "extra" healing really shines in the 99% of this game that isn't the top 1%. I think we all need to admit that WHM is actually tuned to benefit more players than SCH or AST even if it's DPS contribution is smaller. Cards and Speed buffs and Crit buffs don't really matter if a party is struggling to survive and learn mechanics for the first time. To me the Healer balance isn't centered on DPS but the required skill level to successfully heal encounters. In terms of difficulty WHM is easier and supports the large groups of new players learning with a plethora of strong healing skills as a fail safe. Medica 2 can heal through a DPS standing in fiery hell for a reason. Ast is slightly more difficult with less healing options and a card mechanic that can be ignored if you're desperate. SCH is the most difficult with a fairy to command in addition to Aetherflow Stacks to regulate. If you look at the reward of DPS as a tribute to class difficulty for succeeding as a healer then the balance from SE makes sense.