The Case for the WHM Party Buff

[Shurrikhan]

That said, I do think WHM should get some utility, but it doesn't necessarily need to be directly dps oriented.
A speed and MP regen buff would work well, like Arrow+Ewer, now that theyre gone. It would play into their strengths, and suit the water and wind elemental symbolism.

It still wouldnt have more than a marginal effect on dps though. For that they either need instant/shorter cast times, or just a flat potency buff.

I could see the Ewer, but +%Attack Speed is essentially just +%Damage but with direct damage being more greatly affected (10% attack speed = 11.1% bonus direct damage over time) while periodic damage and abilities benefit naught.

It was actually kind of a wonder to me that Thin Air didn't... you know... affect the area (air?) around you? That might actually over-solidify WHM as the progression healer of choice, and wholly deservedly this time, but even a more minor spread effect would be significant.

Meanwhile, honestly, I'd just love to see some manner of oGCD full-cleanse on charges (maybe via... Fluid Aura) and a target, point-AoE, or affected-area movement speed buff.

That said, I do think WHM should get some utility, but it doesn't necessarily need to be directly dps oriented.
A speed and MP regen buff would work well, like Arrow+Ewer, now that theyre gone. It would play into their strengths, and suit the water and wind elemental symbolism.

It still wouldnt have more than a marginal effect on dps though. For that they either need instant/shorter cast times, or just a flat potency buff.

I could see the Ewer, but +%Attack Speed is essentially just +%Damage but with direct damage being more greatly affected (10% attack speed = 11.1% bonus direct damage over time) while periodic damage and abilities benefit naught.

It was actually kind of a wonder to me that Thin Air didn't... you know... affect the area (air?) around you? That might actually over-solidify WHM as the progression healer of choice, and wholly deservedly this time, but even a more minor spread effect would be significant.

Meanwhile, honestly, I'd just love to see some manner of oGCD full-cleanse on charges (maybe via... Fluid Aura) and a target, point-AoE, or affected-area movement speed buff.

Aside from that, though, I just want some more responsive heals (which it seems we're getting, though I'm not a huge fan of what just amounts to a fancy shared-charge system), and to either be compensated for casts per fight lost to poor weaving or to have easier weaving. Heck, even just a Thundercloud-esque Aero II/III proc would probably do wonders.

Separately...

Let's also not forget that %Healing_GCDs has a feedback loop of sorts. The more your combination of healers loses by your filling the shared duty of a given GCD heal, the more likely you will (and should) make the other healer perform that heal. For this reason, one of the easiest ways to screw over "WHM dps" (although an irrelevant metric, as only the healer-pair's total actually matters) is to simply give WHM better GCD healing.

[ForteNightshade]

It was actually kind of a wonder to me that Thin Air didn't... you know... affect the area (air?) around you? That might actually over-solidify WHM as the progression healer of choice, and wholly deservedly this time, but even a more minor spread effect would be significant.

This would allow BLMs to spam Fire IV, pausing only to refresh their Astral Fire. Combined that with AST cards and DNC and you just created a meta where BLM is absolutely dominate. Thin Air is far too strong an ability to ever be made AoE.

[tinythinker]

That said, I do think WHM should get some utility, but it doesn't necessarily need to be directly dps oriented.
A speed and MP regen buff would work well, like Arrow+Ewer, now that theyre gone. It would play into their strengths, and suit the water and wind elemental symbolism.

It still wouldnt have more than a marginal effect on dps though. For that they either need instant/shorter cast times, or just a flat potency buff.

Yeah was thinking this yesterday, even came up with a fun mechanic. Need to remind myself to post it for entertainment value...

[AvenoMatt]

Afflatus Misery - WHM Trick Attack, problem solved.

[Josco]

Most of you all are preaching to the choir. I think the healing kit issues are the more serious ones. If tetra had 2 charges and the afflatus spells were oGCD, maybe? I'd argue lillies should generate every 20s.

There is a perception floating around that WHM slings enough damage to offset not having a party buff, and that is patently false. I'm focusing on the lack of a party buff to point out that, if anything, it should be the other way around.

Was just about the post this myself.

Josco, your PPS calculations make the assumption each spell is being cast constantly....

Fact is, this isn't possible. The much larger factor here is that WHMs entire spellset is probitive to oGCD weaving, which results in a lot of clipping.
SCH has more DoTs (or did have) and more instant GCDs meaning weaving oGCD heals and buffs doesnt impact pDPS as much.
AST has shorter cast times and buffs to shorten them even further, thus less clipping and more pDPS uptime.

Exactly my point. WHM is designed as a reactive healer, but has the fewest tools with which to react. SCH is supposedly a proactive healer, but has a far better kit for reacting to damage than WHM. AST does, too (to a lesser extent).

-snip-

You can say there is no case, but there clearly is. This is just one example. Of the tens of thousands of logs, AST and SCH come out on top by a noticeable amount even given the potency differences. The other 2 healers offer one while WHM does not, and there is no evidence to suggest WHM will have the pDPS to match the others or offset the buffs. In fact, the numbers all point the other way.

You are dead on about the reason, though--WHM's healing kit forces them to use far more GDCs, interrupt casts to move (losing more hidden GCDs), and does not reward knowing the fight as well as AST/SCH.

The raid buffs contribute a lot to the discrepancy, but it's not just them. SCH and AST's mobility blows WHM out of the water, and they both have an easier time working with their oGCDs without clipping.

Exactly. The biggest DPS gain WHM received from the new changes was actually using fewer GCDs to refresh DoTs. It's ~19 PPS gain vs the 10 PPS gain from Misery (which costs 13.3 PPS to use).

[ViolaCrossfire]

If WHM is going to give a party buff I think it would be best to do it as a channeling ability. This would give you a tactical decision to apply regens early to potentially mitigate incomming damage. Make it a 10 second channel that increases damage in a small area around you. It would be specifically useful for phase pushes and it wouldn't be another boring win button.

[fantasticm]

1. Afflatus skills should be oGCD
2. Introduce a trait that makes PoM AoE
3. Give back Divine Seal and Aero 3
4. Revert PI back to its current state
5. Tetra and/or Divine Benis receive charges


666. Afflatus Misery causes Vuln Up to its primary target

[Kabooa]

All I'm seeing here is that Scholar needs a potency nerf.

Maybe removing Shadowflare and Energy Drain, and then more or less equalizing the spam and DoTs.

One could also feasibly reduce the value of cards to make Astrologian vs White mage a more compelling choice.

[EaMett]

All I'm seeing here is that Scholar needs a potency nerf.

Maybe removing Shadowflare and Energy Drain, and then more or less equalizing the spam and DoTs.

One could also feasibly reduce the value of cards to make Astrologian vs White mage a more compelling choice.

To somewhat bounce off of this comment:

The potencies in 5.0 with the curent toolkits actually look decently balanced. I'm of the mind that shadowflare and ED should be reinstated to improve gameplay and flow for SCH, but this should either come at a potency cost accross the DPS toolkit or the other healers should be given similar tools (a bit like how we've been asking for a dps ogcd for WHM over the past 2 years). Probably a combination of both.
The reason for adding them back in is to avoid a lot of clipping and instant GCD casts that we have no skill to weave into. Both of these make for clunky gameplay that just isn't enjoyable.
As it stands Ruin II is not a viable single weave option and opportunities to double weave will be sparse. It's a great opportunity to add both the aforementioned skills back in and nerf broil a little. We would get more to weave, a needed stack dump, and at the same time Ruin II would benefit from the broil nerf and become viable for single weaving (although the mana cost may be an issue depending on 5.0 management). Cue huge gameplay improvement over the current iteration.
Just putting them back in as they were without contingencies will not be helpful however.

As far as WHM is concerned, it's a bit tricky to judge on potencies alone. Some of the things that made them lag behind in pDPS despite having higher potency skills have been removed from other healers, some haven't. How much this reduces the gap between them is pretty hard to tell without seeing damage patterns in encounters (for me at least). My gut feeling is that the current potencies aren't enough to make up for some of the other healer's toolkits and their rDPS contributions.
With that said, as long as WHM pDPS is roughly equivalent to other healer's pDPS+rDPS, WHM doesn't require party utility, it should be a non issue unless I'm missing something? The issue obviously being that that's never been the case up to now.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

The fact that SE saw the WHM complaints about too much GCD clipping and mobility issues and decided to give us instant heals on the GCD really shows how disconnected they are.
Whenever someone mentioned mobility issues and clipping, they were referring to DPS, not healing.
And then to lock our DPS ability behind a healing requirement. This was literally what we said we hated about lilies and you did it again. Was the 90s CD not enough by itself?

If WHM ever does get utility, you can bet it's going to be extremely poorly handled like everything else on this job has been.