A(nother) Secret of the Lily Rework Thread

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I don't mean to hijack the thread or anything, but I strongly encourage people that have questions/worries about the lily system/where it may be going to also post in the questions thread for the upcoming E3 live letter, if you haven't already.

If we bring up the topic often enough, we could see some results, and that thread seems like the best place to get the devs attention and at least get some info about what plans they may or may not have for the system.

[Kabooa]

Eh. Given the way you stock lilies here, they'd need a more pronounced use.

[Ghishlain]

Good stuff, here's hoping the community team passes it on.

Overall just a whole lot of yes, yes please.

Very nice ideas.

I agree with this idea.

Thank you for the approval

I love this rework for Lilies but if it was implemented I think the potencies for the cool down reduction would need to be changed. Currently it only takes 3 GCD's to get 3 lillies and with your proposal it would take 30 GCD's by contrast if you don't count Regen Ticks. Even with Regen Ticks it is a much longer process. It's clear from the design of the skill that spot healing was the focus of the trait which is typically a sign of a terrible group being terrible. So the cool down reduction seems to have this intention of being used for wipe correction and not for speed run optimization which is what your Lily proposal lends itself to. A new healer who may actually stand still doing nothing waiting to heal would benefit more from the current Lily system. I do admire the fact that you encourage more active gameplay but I also like that White Mage is built currently to help the extreme novice to healing. I would think that the lilies should be generated by Cure 1 & 2 at Level 52 and then have the trait switch to a GCD fed meter with regen ticks included at 68 to better transition the super novice to a super elite.

I don't disagree with your statement - it seems exactly what S-E intended. It's also why many of us take issue to the Lily system - it's a system designed to fix bad parties and thus when you're in a GOOD party, it does nothing for the White Mage as Cure and Cure II become the least useful choice out of all your options.

I don't think your suggestion is a bad suggestion either though~ So thank you for the input

-Snips-

This proposal is just an over-designed "make it work off DPS" suggestion. As I've said in maybe a half dozen threads accross GD and here, the gauges are to point players the correct direction of doing their role/job. DPS is not a core part of the healer's job, hence none of their gauges deal with DPS. It's not a limit break button where resources are consumed. You may not like that it promotes, what in your point of view is inefficient play, but it is what the dev's view is the correct role of the healer. Therefor asking for anything related to DPS to be involved with the lilies is promoting the idea that the WHM is a green DPS, and that is simply dredging up the "lazy healer" nonsense again.

Now putting "correct way of healing" aside. This is what I would change in your idea:

1. Cast any healing GCD
2. A resource bar is charged (similar to Beast Meter / Heat)
3. When 100 resources is generated, the WHM grows a Lily and the bar resets (WHM can store up to 3 total)


Secrets of the Lily
Adds 10 resources to your Lily Gauge upon the successful execution of a healing GCD spell that recovers HP. When 100 resources is accumulated, a Lily is added (maximum 3 can be stored)
Lilies will lower the recast time for Asylum, Assize, Divine Benison, or Tetragrammaton by a percentage corresponding to the number of Lilies stacked at time of action execution (at which time the Lilies are removed).

1 Lily: 4%
2 Lilies: 10%
3 Lilies: 20%

It's important to keep the function of Lily I independent from Lily II.

Secrets of the Lily II
Any GCD heal that recovers at least 10% HP, removes 5 seconds from all currently ticking oGCD recast timers (including role actions like Largesse, Swiftcast and Lucid Dreaming) until there is 10 seconds remaining. Per player healed. So an efficiently executed Medica/Medica II/Cure III will shave 20 secs off a light party and 40 secs off a full party. Can not recast Asylum while Asylum is still up. (Admittedly this could probably break Swiftcast and POM if there is no floor recast to using either.)

Lily I & II will have no direct positive or negative effect on DPS skills. If you want to instead use Swiftcast and PoM on DPS skills, go right ahead, that's your loophole to exploit.

You need to leave all DPS skills out of the lilies themselves, or you will see the all DPS skills potency cut to balance it (even the your proposal in the first post would certainly result in cutting the DPS potency of Assize, and so would this one.)

Personally I'm expecting SE to nerf the potency of all DPS skills on all jobs in 5.0 relative to the new skills. So where Stone I (140)/ II(200) / III (210) / IV (250) gained 78%. That is far more significant amount of skill creep when the BLM's only gained 55%, and they have to combo to get that largest boom the fastest.

What I would like to see are "combo" skills that work with the co-healer. So instead of some absurd stacked HoT regen mechanics, they create a "shared double potency" version, so now instead of seeing two HoT stacks (and not knowing which one is yours), either healer that casts Medica II while there is still time left on the super-medica II HoT, renews the HoT for half the time, so that overlapping casts don't clip. eg Both healers cast Medica II (Or Diurnal Aspected Helios), result "Super Medica II", 30 secs. Each time Medica II is casted by either healer adds 15 seconds to it instead of a 30 second separate HoT's. WHM+AST(Noct) or WHM+SCH = "Medica Shield" where the Medica II cast recovers HP, and the Shield/Galvanize effect adds a shield, and once the players HP is full, the shield power doubles, and can be renewed by either the WHM or the SCH/AST. And for SCH+SCH or SCH+AST(Noct) you get "Super Galvanize" which doubles the strength, but is extended instead of overwritten by subsequent Aspected Helios/Succor casts. This solves the stacking/overwriting problem by allowing one healer to renew the the effect for 15s even if the other healer has has been taken out of commission. Initiating the "Super" version requires both healers to cast the HoT skill within one server tick of the other, otherwise behaves as normal.

A similar proposal could exist for DPS's that give party buffs, where a combination buff applies to the party as long as one of the DPS keeps renewing it.

No, my proposal is to make Lilies work by remaining active as a White Mage. It doesn't matter if you're healing or DPSing because it builds your Lilies and works if your party is playing well or playing poorly.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the Lily system is designed to fix bad parties and means very little when the White Mages join parties with few to no mechanical mistakes. My proposal changes that to be more active.

And, as many others have noted in the thread, your proposed SotL II trait is very very very overpowered. Being able to essentially Medica + Assize every single raid buster, being able to have Divine Benison + Tetra or Bendiction for every tank buster in the game, maintaining infinite MP via Lucid and Thin Air AND having zero enmity issue by being able to pop Lucid Dreaming at all times means you'll always be bringing 2 Tanks, One White Mage, and Five DPS to every fight if you can get the people and don't get screwed by healer mechanics.

I like a lot your way of gaining the lilies. I just think the usage of lilies is still underwhelming. Cooldown reduction is not enough and this way of gaining them that is a but slow will most likely end up using an ability that use a lily when we just have one.

Indeed. The foundation for the Lily system needs to be better and once that foundation is set, it'll be important to see what we can do to make the bonuses they give more appealing. We can also adjust the rates too so Lilies can be grown faster.

Edit: Also I don't want to detract from the OP's original idea. It really is wonderful and doesn't deserve to be derailed by this other nonsense.

I don't mind persay! As long as it doesn't get to ridiculously off rails, lol. The more bumps, the more exposure to the thread and proposal which isn't a bad thing.

If I understand well, we would have 3 Lily under 51 secondes ?
And for what ? 20% reduction on one skill among those listed ?

Your first part with "cast GCD", "bar", "100 ressources" is good but in the end it would change nothing if the generation of lilies is too long combined to low rewards.

"Alternatively, the bonuses to Lilies can be changed to a unique bonus based on the skill (IE Divine Benison gains a higher %-bonus, Aslyum can gain a potency bonus, etc. to help flesh out the WHM identity with the Lilies.)"

Yeah it would be better or either 3 lilies generated within 30 sec (and the large problem remain with Divine Benison which is casted every 30 sec, so the other skills can't benefit from Lilies).

The rates can be adjusted relatively easily given the way it works right now. By making the GCD rate be 15 per cast and the ticks be 4 per ticks you'd get a Lily every 16.7s with only SotL and 11.5s with SotL II. It's not difficult to change and so will be reasonably easy to balance.

This way more lillies, more fun with the abilities.

-Snip-

Just because the proposed lili would proc of dps skill, this (or anything remotely close) won't happen.

As much as I don't agree entirely with Kisai, the first thing she says is true regarding SE view of what a healer should do.

I don't think it's that they don't want us to dps, but they don't want to force us to dps. In other words, they won't include a mechanic that enhance your healing if you dps.

What you propose is that, if you want more heals, you better spam those rocks. And this definitely goes against healer's design in this game.
There isn't a single mechanic among the 3 healers that rewards dps with more healing. In fact it's usually the contrary, dpsing might reduce your healing output, but never the opposite.

Any lilie proposition involving dps skill is, imo, useless and a waste of time.

I mean they're not dumb, they know that if they'd do something rewarding healer dps (with something else than the dps itself) people would consider this gameplay as mandatory. (even tho it's somewhat already the case)
If you could consume lilies to shoot a dps skill, no one would use lilies on anything else
If you could always draw the king of the crowns, you'd be frowned up for using the lady
If Selene could attack, people would kick you for using Eos

There's a reason healer have no proper dps mechanic or anything rewarding you for dpsing.
The only reason we get new dps skill (usually single target) is to solo content.

Healer dps is seen as optional. (damn even Y.P had to say "I would like to remind people that healer first role is to heal in raid and that boss are deisgned around healer doing no damage at all")
So anytime you propose something for healer, be mindful of that.

The best you could get is a dps mechanic boosting another dps mechanic. But a dps mechanic enhancing your healing capacity, nope. At least not until they change their mind and consider healer should dps.


Personally, if they were to ever do something remotely close to a dps gauge for WHM, it would be separated from the lilies.

Like "thorns" or something.

There is one healing ability in the game that can be enhanced by your DPS: Fey Union. While the Aetherflow can be used for healing abilities, they can also be used for both Bane and Energy Drain - both being DPS abilities. Since Fey Union is a short term single target boost to your pet's healing output, it does enhance the fairy's healing.

Additionally, while not directly enhancing a healer's ability to heal, both AST and WHM have abilities that both heal and damage at the same time in the form of Earthly Star and Assize respectively.

While I do know Yoshi-P has gone on record for saying healer DPS is optional, he can changes his mind as well. We have abilities that you should be using for both healing and DPS so time will tell if we continue to get more of those types of tools.

I don't mean to hijack the thread or anything, but I strongly encourage people that have questions/worries about the lily system/where it may be going to also post in the questions thread for the upcoming E3 live letter, if you haven't already.

If we bring up the topic often enough, we could see some results, and that thread seems like the best place to get the devs attention and at least get some info about what plans they may or may not have for the system.

To add to this, I'm going to recommend anyone who wants to attempt to make an impact look at this post in particular in the E3 question thread.

S-E seems to enjoy having things go via their like count so, the more posters who like it, the better chance it'll have at being asked.

Eh. Given the way you stock lilies here, they'd need a more pronounced use.

Entirely possible to do~ I didn't go into much details in the OP but it would be nice if there were potency buffs, enmity dumps, MP recovery, etc.. I feel the sky is the limit in terms of what bonus the Lilies can supply, it's just a matter of being creative and remaining thematic as well.

[NobleWinter]

I absolutely love this post and everyone in it. I know this may be slightly off topic but I definitely want to thank everyone for taking time away from the game itself as infinitely enjoyable as it is to come here and share opinions and ideas. I have learned more from this forum than I could ever hope to. I never realized how small my perspective and understanding were until I saw the viewpoints from the famous healers that hang out here. It actually encouraged me to branch into the Savage content that honestly terrified me and now I have way more fun. I really can't wait to see what changes are gonna come in the future for all Healers and WHM especially. The game just keeps getting better. (Still miss Stone Skin and Leeches tho)

[Tridus]

Secrets of the Lily
Adds 10 resources to your Lily Gauge upon the successful execution of a spell while in combat. When 100 resources is accumulated, a Lily is added (maximum 3 can be stored)
Lilies will lower the recast time for Asylum, Assize, Divine Benison, or Tetragrammaton by a percentage corresponding to the number of Lilies stacked at time of action execution (at which time the Lilies are removed).

1 Lily: 4%
2 Lilies: 10%
3 Lilies: 20%

Secrets of the Lily II
Upon the successful execution of a HoT tick, add 3 resources to your Lily gauge (this can only occur once per server tick to prevent massive gauge building via Medica II)
Upon the successful execution of a DoT tick, add 3 resources to your Lily gauge (also can only occur once per server tick to prevent massive gain via Aero III)

This part is great.

Adjust Secrets of the Lily or a future third tier of the trait could be have the following text:

"Lilies will lower the recast time for Asylum, Assize, Divine Benison, or Tetragrammaton by a percentage corresponding to the number of Lilies stacked at time of action execution (at which time only a single Lily are removed)."

The skill ceiling balance would be trying to maintain three lilies to maximize the Lily bonuses while still being able to keep up with healing responsibilities. An added incentive could be tying a passive stacking healing and damage buff of 2% per Lily to further encourage Lily maintenance. The one fault of this style of gameplay is encouraging high risk which is not conducive to responsible healing.

This would be better. Aside from CDR still not being interesting, not wiping out all the lilies every time you blink would help make it feel like a resource that you're supposed to manage and care about instead of "if it does something, okay, if not, whatever", which is what it is right now.

This proposal is just an over-designed "make it work off DPS" suggestion. As I've said in maybe a half dozen threads accross GD and here, the gauges are to point players the correct direction of doing their role/job.

The lily gauge completely fails at this goal right now. It encourages you to play the job badly.

DPS is not a core part of the healer's job

Yes it is. Why do you think healer DPS was made easier in Stormblood? Hint: Developers don't make it easier to do something they don't want people to do.

hence none of their gauges deal with DPS.

Energy Drain, Bane, Balance, Spear, Arrow, and Lord of Crowns all may disagree with your assessment. The WHM gauge has nothing to do with DPS, but the WHM gauge is also functionally irrelevant when playing WHM.

It's not a limit break button where resources are consumed. You may not like that it promotes, what in your point of view is inefficient play, but it is what the dev's view is the correct role of the healer. Therefor asking for anything related to DPS to be involved with the lilies is promoting the idea that the WHM is a green DPS, and that is simply dredging up the "lazy healer" nonsense again.

No it's not. It's recognizing how the game is actually played, because that's the game the devs gave us. If they want people to focus on healing, maybe they shouldn't give us content like Swallows Compass where there isn't enough damage to ever require casting Cure II.

You seem to be mistaking your opinion of what healers should be with developer intent. They haven't told us what their intent with healer design in SB was. All we know for sure is their actions changed the game to make it easier to do across the board. They continued to do that with the recent AST changes.

These are not the actions of people who don't want healers to press DPS buttons.

Now putting "correct way of healing" aside. This is what I would change in your idea:

1. Cast any healing GCD
2. A resource bar is charged (similar to Beast Meter / Heat)
3. When 100 resources is generated, the WHM grows a Lily and the bar resets (WHM can store up to 3 total)


Secrets of the Lily
Adds 10 resources to your Lily Gauge upon the successful execution of a healing GCD spell that recovers HP. When 100 resources is accumulated, a Lily is added (maximum 3 can be stored)
Lilies will lower the recast time for Asylum, Assize, Divine Benison, or Tetragrammaton by a percentage corresponding to the number of Lilies stacked at time of action execution (at which time the Lilies are removed).

1 Lily: 4%
2 Lilies: 10%
3 Lilies: 20%

This is strictly worse than it is now, because instead of getting 1 lily per 1 cast of certain GCDs, you need TEN casts of a slightly wider selection of GCDs. This would simply cause people to get fewer lilies. And the effect of the lilies is still junk.

Secrets of the Lily II
Any GCD heal that recovers at least 10% HP, removes 5 seconds from all currently ticking oGCD recast timers (including role actions like Largesse, Swiftcast and Lucid Dreaming) until there is 10 seconds remaining. Per player healed. So an efficiently executed Medica/Medica II/Cure III will shave 20 secs off a light party and 40 secs off a full party. Can not recast Asylum while Asylum is still up. (Admittedly this could probably break Swiftcast and POM if there is no floor recast to using either.)

As everyone else has already said, comically overpowered. 40 seconds of a CD is a huge amount when WHM has so many 30-120 second cooldowns.

Lily I & II will have no direct positive or negative effect on DPS skills. If you want to instead use Swiftcast and PoM on DPS skills, go right ahead, that's your loophole to exploit.

Umm, 40 seconds off the cooldown of Assize is a DPS skill.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Besides, lilies are not the only "useless" resource; PI is also pretty weak for a "signature patch" skill imo.

They want to maintain this identity for WHM as a pure healer, but they're simply running out of different ways to heal.
I mean, there's only so many ways a single healer can get HP up, eventually it all just starts to look like silly gimmicks that are not worth your time.

Now, I'm not saying Plenary Indulgence is useless, because it is pretty nice in O8s and Ultimate, but you're right in that it's an extremely disappointing level 70 ability, to say the least.

[dejiko_san]

They want to maintain this identity for WHM as a pure healer, but they're simply running out of different ways to heal.
I mean, there's only so many ways a single healer can get HP up, eventually it all just starts to look like silly gimmicks that are not worth your time.

Now, I'm not saying Plenary Indulgence is useless, because it is pretty nice in O8s and Ultimate, but you're right in that it's an extremely disappointing level 70 ability, to say the least.

What they could have done, is make it a kind of aoe mini shield. You throw it on someone and the nearby people get a "splash" of it on them. Less powerful than the original target but still protected. We have water skill, it can be a water shield!

[Ceasaria]

What they could have done, is make it a kind of aoe mini shield. You throw it on someone and the nearby people get a "splash" of it on them. Less powerful than the original target but still protected. We have water skill, it can be a water shield!

I imagine putting Divine Benison on a player and then doing Fluid Aura on him to "splash" the shield over the team lol.

[Mahrze]

Now, I'm not saying Plenary Indulgence is useless, because it is pretty nice in O8s and Ultimate, but you're right in that it's an extremely disappointing level 70 ability, to say the least.

Oh I know it is not useless, hence the quotes. To add clarity, I mean how the skill doesn't actually have a UI element even though it has a resource (regardless of how convoluted af it is) that requires management and it was an additional quip at Kisai's "The UI points the way" silly point.

[Keridwyn]

My post was pretty hasty but mostly because I didn't know if changes to either if those would break upper level content.

Fluid Aura: The reason I suggested a splash heal wasn't because I thought we needed more heals but because it could have been tied into the Lily system if it were and only if the shield idea was too busted. I would much rather it became a shield and I really like the idea of it turning into Benison. You can then tie it into the lilies with things like extended duration per lily or improved defense % per lily.

Repose: A dampener or even a shifter but I have seen plenty of folks around the forums mentioning WHM lacks in this area so I figured some sort of threat reduction button would see more use. It fits as an oGCD and if the Lilies continue to effect oGCDs then it could benefit from the buffs and reductiins they bring.

You raise a good point with PoTD. I imagine they do indeed see use for high level solo play but if that's their only use...I would rather see them removed and the class otherwise tuned to compensate for their loss.