Where to go with the Lily Gauge

[ty_taurus]

I think most of us will agree that the changes we saw to the lily system for WHM were one of the few healer changes that improved something.

Right now, lilies generate themselves on a 30 second timer to a maximum of 3, and we get 3 spells on the GCD that are associated with the lilies: Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture, which consume lilies and nourish the blood lily, and Afflatus Misery which can be used after the blood lily gets nourished 3 times.

It's a simple, yet effective system, but it's not perfect.
For one, you're not really using the entire system that the lilies have to offer until level 74 when Misery is learned. Until then, the idea of healing allies to nourish the blood lily is entirely foreign to a leveling WHM.
Another issue is that most content doesn't have enough damage to demanding lily usage, and WHMs who have at least a fair amount of experience healing just won't really use them, at least not the way they're intended to be used.
The way a lot of people are using Afflatus spells in most content is as a weave tool. Afflatus Rapture is instant cast, which means you can cast it immediately after a Glare when you need to move, and while it's a DPS loss, you would've had to move anyway. Since it nourishes the blood lily though, it's more efficient than overwriting Dia if Dia's still in effect. This is awkward to use and doesn't feel great even if it is often the best way to spend your lilies.

With all that in mind, here are a few examples of abilities that I'd love to see get added to WHM's tools between 80 and 90 that I think would help create more of that smoothness that we're looking for.

1. Afflatus Bliss
GCD action, 0 MP Cost
Instant Cast / 2.5 second recast
Grants target party member the effects of Afflatus Bliss
Duration: 15 seconds
Lily Gauge Cost: 1
When the effect expires, restores target party member's HP with a potency of 500
If target party member takes damage equal to or greater than 30% max HP, resolves the effect immediately and grants the WHM Gladiolus Ready
Nourishes the Blood Lily

2. Gladiolus
OGCD action
Instant Cast / 30 second recast
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 300
Can only be executed under the effects of Gladiolus Ready and consumes the buff.

3. Effloresce
GCD action, 1000 MP cost
Instant Cast, 30 second recast
Restores HP to target and all allies nearby them with a potency of 150
Deals unpasected damage with a potency of 150 to all enemies nearby target party member
If target party member's HP is 80% of max HP or higher after the heal, also Nourishes the Blood Lily.

[Semirhage]

I like these ideas. I'm not sure how else I'd want to change the lily gauge, but what I do know is that I hate how the correct thing to do in Expert Roulette is to blow your lilies between pulls so you can get Misery up. Spamming instant heals on full HP party members out of combat is garbo design.

[Kabooa]

Afflatus bliss is effectively 525 offensive potency.

People complain about the 75 effective loss currently.

What would you do to discourage only using Bliss?

[ty_taurus]

Afflatus bliss is effectively 525 offensive potency.

People complain about the 75 effective loss currently.

What would you do to discourage only using Bliss?

You only get the damage from Bliss if the party member takes 30% of their HP as damage. I made a mistake though, I meant for the duration to be 15 seconds instead of 30. If you don't get the damage, then Bliss is a weaker Solace

[elioaiko]

The only I can see SE doing is giving them a ST version of Misery to mirror BLM's Foul/Xenoglossy.

Other than making it so that a lily can grant a GCD dot on with a say 30-60s CD, adding more healing is essentially the same thing. Maybe, a regen and AoE regen option is in the works, but at the end of the day, unless you have to move or there's downtime, lillies aren't going to be touched.

They could make Misery dps neutral but then it would be unfair to SCH and AST who are punished for even touching a GCD heal. It's a hard issue to solve tbh, because while the current lily system is way better than its SB counterpart, it's flaw because you shouldn't need to GCD often therefore making them useless as an optimal WHM will never use them in a speedrun for what they're intended for.

[Kabooa]

You only get the damage from Bliss if the party member takes 30% of their HP as damage. I made a mistake though, I meant for the duration to be 15 seconds instead of 30. If you don't get the damage, then Bliss is a weaker Solace

It's extremely easy to break 30% in 15 seconds. That's any raid buster, tank buster, aoe dungeon pull, etc. It's also not much weaker than Solace as a single target heal, as it cannot overheal by itself. It's a retuned Excog with the benefit of granting a huge potency bonus. (RE: Just double the damage you get from Misery now, that's how much potency this is.)

As far as other Afflatus abilities can go - No real issue with Gladioulus in concept, but the trigger effect should probably be the consumption of Lilies instead of one singular ability. Effloresce seems like something you'd just use on cooldown with no regards to its healing component.

[ty_taurus]

It's extremely easy to break 30% in 15 seconds. That's any raid buster, tank buster, aoe dungeon pull, etc. It's also not much weaker than Solace as a single target heal, as it cannot overheal by itself. It's a retuned Excog with the benefit of granting a huge potency bonus. (RE: Just double the damage you get from Misery now, that's how much potency this is.)

As far as other Afflatus abilities can go - No real issue with Gladioulus in concept, but the trigger effect should probably be the consumption of Lilies instead of one singular ability. Effloresce seems like something you'd just use on cooldown with no regards to its healing component.

Possibly, though I think the idea needs something to prevent it from just being free damage per lily. The idea was that you wanted to use specific lilies at specific times, and I was actually basing the idea more off Blackest Night than Excogitation.

[Recon1o6]

Hmm, assuming that SE gives attacks back, I would put the lilies to whm's problem of no utility. Something like these 2


Lily's poise instant gcd: use a lily to restore 1000 mp to target and grant 10% mitigation and reduce spell cast time and autoattack delay by 10% for 15s.

Afflatus harmony, recast 90s instant gcd: heals 300pot in 6y and generates an aura that increases dhit rate by 10% for self and allies within 6y

[Kabooa]

Possibly, though I think the idea needs something to prevent it from just being free damage per lily. The idea was that you wanted to use specific lilies at specific times, and I was actually basing the idea more off Blackest Night than Excogitation.

There's nothing wrong with providing damage per Lily. That's what the current system does - It refunds potency you didn't get to use for damage because you had to use it for healing, in theory. In practice, most of the game is tuned low enough that the best use of Lilies are to heal between pulls or when the boss goes untargetable.

There is a fairly intuitive solution that we've seen in Bozja, and that is giving White mage Seraph Strike (And the other healers something similar, but SS works best on White Mage). A signifcant burst increase of at least 40% would turn the 225 (-75) refund into 300+. So long as you land Misery within Seraph Strike's window, previous Lily expenditure is neutral at worst, and a large gain at best.

So Gladiolous can be something more like

Spell - Instant Cast / 2.5s Recast
Effect: Only usable when Readied. Deals 300 Potency. Grants X for 15s.

X: The Potency of the next spell is increased by 25%.

Every Lily readies it, providing a universal spellboost, with Glare for filler, dia for bonus damage, Misery for big nuke. This doesn't include having other spell options as well. This addresses a few things.

1. It isn't a flat potency boost. We could easily improve Misery to 1200 and it'd be 'neutral' but this doesn't address the play issue of White Mage. If every Gladioulus improvement is spent on glare, it's approximately 225 additional potency, or, a little less than needed to be neutral.
2. It provides both ideal and 'good enough' responses to the situation at hand.
3. It discourages Lily dumping on transition phases. By turning it neutral to positive, you're no longer "losing" Glares by healing with Lilies. To come out ahead, you have to use your Lilies as they are demanded, and then make the best choice with your spell after. There are few cases where Lily 3 isn't going to be used immediately on Misery, but some will exist where Misery will be more useful 21 seconds from now (Two+ target situations).
4. A few more weave windows.

As far as Effloresce goes, I'd like to see more interactable abilities, so this will be a point of personal preference.

Afflatus Effloresce
Instant Cast / 2.5s Recast
Effect: Drop a blooming flower at your feet. After 12 seconds, fully blossoms, healing the first party member to run over it for 400 potency. Once consumed, Nourishes the Blood Lily after 6 seconds.

This is your "No one actually needs healing, but Dia's about to fall off." button. Throw a healing pick up on to the ground. Delayed Lily Nourishment. Enjoy the implications.

[ty_taurus]

There's nothing wrong with providing damage per Lily. That's what the current system does - It refunds potency you didn't get to use for damage because you had to use it for healing, in theory. In practice, most of the game is tuned low enough that the best use of Lilies are to heal between pulls or when the boss goes untargetable.

There is a fairly intuitive solution that we've seen in Bozja, and that is giving White mage Seraph Strike (And the other healers something similar, but SS works best on White Mage). A signifcant burst increase of at least 40% would turn the 225 (-75) refund into 300+. So long as you land Misery within Seraph Strike's window, previous Lily expenditure is neutral at worst, and a large gain at best.

So Gladiolous can be something more like

Spell - Instant Cast / 2.5s Recast
Effect: Only usable when Readied. Deals 300 Potency. Grants X for 15s.

X: The Potency of the next spell is increased by 25%.

Every Lily readies it, providing a universal spellboost, with Glare for filler, dia for bonus damage, Misery for big nuke. This doesn't include having other spell options as well. This addresses a few things.

1. It isn't a flat potency boost. We could easily improve Misery to 1200 and it'd be 'neutral' but this doesn't address the play issue of White Mage. If every Gladioulus improvement is spent on glare, it's approximately 225 additional potency, or, a little less than needed to be neutral.
2. It provides both ideal and 'good enough' responses to the situation at hand.
3. It discourages Lily dumping on transition phases. By turning it neutral to positive, you're no longer "losing" Glares by healing with Lilies. To come out ahead, you have to use your Lilies as they are demanded, and then make the best choice with your spell after. There are few cases where Lily 3 isn't going to be used immediately on Misery, but some will exist where Misery will be more useful 21 seconds from now (Two+ target situations).
4. A few more weave windows.

As far as Effloresce goes, I'd like to see more interactable abilities, so this will be a point of personal preference.

Afflatus Effloresce
Instant Cast / 2.5s Recast
Effect: Drop a blooming flower at your feet. After 12 seconds, fully blossoms, healing the first party member to run over it for 400 potency. Once consumed, Nourishes the Blood Lily after 6 seconds.

This is your "No one actually needs healing, but Dia's about to fall off." button. Throw a healing pick up on to the ground. Delayed Lily Nourishment. Enjoy the implications.

Right I see what you mean. It's a really great improvement actually. With just these 2 actions, you have better options for weaving, resolve the issue of lilies fighting for your GCD casts, and your adjustment to the Effloresce is both effective and exactly what healers are thirsty for right now--something different with a lot of identity. Having it literally a flower growing from the ground not only is different than what the other healers have (the closest example being Earthly Star) but it also further solidifies the WHM's floral motif in a very literal sense.

The only thing might be the timing of the Blood Lily Nourish. They'd obviously need that information to be transmitted to the WHM in a very clear fashion, since the effect happens after the flower fully blooms and is consumed, which it doesn't have to be right away. I get why you'd want it to work that way, though it might be a bit simpler just to have the nourish occur as the flower fully blooms.