Where to go with the Lily Gauge

[Isharis]

That just reduces flexibility, though. After casting Regen, for instance, you lose 200 potency of healing for every 3 seconds nearer to Regen's application you cast Solace, but 1200 potency if you delay Solace to more than 18 (minus twice your ping) seconds from Regen's actuation.

That just sounds... frustrating, and very much contradictory to both the typical favorable pacing of Lily spending and the flexibility Lily heals seem meant to provide.

Solace adding duration to Regen reduces flexibility? Reduced potency? I'm not saying Solace shouldn't still heal, just extend Regen if the effect was already on the target. It would still have its normal heal regardless of whether it extended Regen or not. That sure seems like increased flexibility and increased healing potency.

[Shurrikhan]

Solace adding duration to Regen reduces flexibility?

You have tied Solace to another mechanic. Yes, that reduces its flexibility in optimized play.

I'm not saying Solace shouldn't still heal, just extend Regen if the effect was already on the target.

I know. That is exactly how it reduces its flexibility.

That sure seems like increased flexibility and increased healing potency.

Increased maximal healing potency? Yes. From 700 to at most 1700. Increased flexibility? No. Quite the opposite. To optimize Solace, you must now use it with less Regen duration left on your target than will meet the next server HoT tick.

Is that constraint really something you want to be at all balanced around? I certainly don't. It's constrictive and I don't look at WHM and think that it ought to have its potency-per-minute especially centered around buff-duration-sniping.

[Isharis]

Is that constraint really something you want to be at all balanced around? I certainly don't. It's constrictive and I don't look at WHM and think that it ought to have its potency-per-minute especially centered around buff-duration-sniping.

Didn't realize we were accounting for having to make major sacrifices for any changes, though its certainly a pragmatic view. I don't see having Solace add like +10-15 seconds to a max of 30 seconds or so to an existing Regen as something so OP we would need such a significant balance adjustment. It was more about having a way to use Lily that wasn't just a wasteful dump.

Since we are assuming any changes to buff Lily's will require such balance changes, and additional mechanics are frustratingly constrictive and inflexible, it would seem the ideal solution then would be to just remove the Lily mechanic entirely. Then we wouldn't have the constrictions of having to deal with Lily charges. We would have increased flexibility and wouldn't have to be balanced around the constrictive Lily mechanic.

Just have the Afflatus spells as simple cool downs. No having to deal with dumping Lily charges just to use Misery.

[Shurrikhan]

Didn't realize we were accounting for having to make major sacrifices for any changes, though its certainly a pragmatic view. I don't see having Solace add like +10-15 seconds to a max of 30 seconds or so to an existing Regen as something so OP we would need such a significant balance adjustment. It was more about having a way to use Lily that wasn't just a wasteful dump.

Since we are assuming any changes to buff Lily's will require such balance changes, and additional mechanics are frustratingly constrictive and inflexible, it would seem the ideal solution then would be to just remove the Lily mechanic entirely. Then we wouldn't have the constrictions of having to deal with Lily charges. We would have increased flexibility and wouldn't have to be balanced around the constrictive Lily mechanic.

Just have the Afflatus spells as simple cool downs. No having to deal with dumping Lily charges just to use Misery.

If it adds ppm, it should be balanced around. It shouldn't assume perfect usage, but it should assume some.

That's largely irrelevant to the constraints of optimal play, though. Even if one's job were OP, that doesn't suddenly excuse you from playing to the best you can when in, say, Savage content.

If you could do better by using Solace in that constrained manner, that will be the expectation and thus, increasingly as one goes into increasingly stringent content, a very real constraint.

Since we are assuming any changes to buff Lily's will require such balance changes, and additional mechanics are frustratingly constrictive and inflexible, it would seem the ideal solution then would be to just remove the Lily mechanic entirely.

Not remotely. Consider what the present Lily spells themselves do, just by nature of being an allowance of instant casts that require no prior weave (unlike Swiftcast), and what little else provides that value (Dia, and Dia alone). Unless there is no way to weave movement or oGCDs whatsoever, weaving will be obligatory. Dia already makes it so. But now you have not only a second means of providing weave-space but also a far more flexible one, as Lily spells can be banked for up to 119 seconds' worth of uptime (just short of overcapping with 3 Lily charges held).

Just have the Afflatus spells as simple cool downs.

Unless they'd come with multiple charges, that'd be a downgrade to flexibility.

No having to deal with dumping Lily charges just to use Misery.

Then you'd have buffed WHM's maximal dps by roughly 400 ppm (which may bring down the balance hammer) without much improving their party's rDPS unless there was zero space for Lily heals to actually heal. Moreover, you'd have removed the main selling point of Lily skills via Misery -- to, effectively, refund most of the offensive potency lost to uptime spent on healing, up to 2 GCD's worth per minute.