Giving Whm an identity

[Acece]

The purpose of this rework is to give Whm an identity of a green dps that heals through damage, and giving them a higher skill ceiling while keeping a low skill floor by making it more forgiving compared to other healers.


Plenary Indulgence: New trait everyone affected by Plenary Indulgence heals for 50% of the damage the Whm does.
Plenary Indulgence: Now has a 30 sec cd

Fluid aura is a 300 pot Instant cast on a 12 sec cd, has 2 charges.
Fluid aura grants 2% mana upon cast.

New Spell: seraph strike. Ability, instant. 28 sec cd, 25y range.
250 pot attack, grants cleric stance.
New passive cleric stance: Stone > Glare, Holy > Holy II, Fluid Aura > Flood, lasts 12 sec
Glare: 400 pot, 1.5 gcd
Holy II: 200 pot, 2.5 gcd, stuns: 4 sec.
Flood: Instant cast 500 pot, grants 4% mana.

Presence of Mind Is now a 2 min cd

Cure I becomes cure II Once unlocked.
Cure II now has a 1.5 sec gcd.

When a Lilly blooms, Medica I and Cure II is now instant and when used it will feed the blood Lilly.

Every thing else is the same.

The idea is to keep healing simple while also giving Whm a way to heal without losing damage (while giving them more weave spaces and mobility). Whm has a 30 sec burst to line up with Plenary Indulgence.

Keeping the lily system the same will keep it so when a Whm do mess up, the Whm will not lose significant amount of damage (when a Whm messes up too badly they will have their powerful gcd to cover it at the cost of their damage.)

Whm relevant buttons now is 26 after the rework it's 25.

This is mostly just a rough draft of what I would want from Whm when we are balanced with Ast in mind. Potencies and such are not final. If you see something you don't like please feel free to criticize.

Inspiration for this was Red mage and Disc priest from WoW.

[Raikai]

I like the idea... but this concept is able to be balanced with other healers?

All that passive healing through dps wouldn't make WHMs be the favored healer regardless? The reason why it works for Disc priests (at least in BfA when I played), was that you had to manage a buff in your allies to make them receive the passive heals, so there was a layer of logistics there that had a higher skill ceiling, but had your party benefit from a bit extra dps.

If dps across healers would still remain the same, it's probably feasible, especially because AST for example brings even more dps by buffing other people.

Yeah, I suppose it can be a fun niche! And I really like the idea of Cleric Stance turning the elemental spell into the Light version (Glare, dia, etc)

[Acece]

I like the idea... but this concept is able to be balanced with other healers?

All that passive healing through dps wouldn't make WHMs be the favored healer regardless? The reason why it works for Disc priests (at least in BfA when I played), was that you had to manage a buff in your allies to make them receive the passive heals, so there was a layer of logistics there that had a higher skill ceiling, but had your party benefit from a bit extra dps.

If dps across healers would still remain the same, it's probably feasible, especially because AST for example brings even more dps by buffing other people.

Yeah, I suppose it can be a fun niche! And I really like the idea of Cleric Stance turning the elemental spell into the Light version (Glare, dia, etc)

Healers in wow also have a lot less free aoe healing compared to ffxiv. Wow had most healers aoe cap of 5-6 people in a 20 man group (only disc was able to heal the whole raid group, but they needed to do a lot in advance), meanwhile in ffxiv Aoe heals cover everything to a point you don't really need to gcd heal anyone.

I still think Whm weaknesses are still the same (low mobility, less weaving, lose more damage if you mess up) but it lessens it to a degree. Current ast might just be broken but it pretty much has no weaknesses and when Whm will need to be balanced around them in End Walker, either Whm needs to be powered up or Ast will be broken down ( I would rather not have Ast be in a broken state like they were at the beginning of Shadow Bringers).

Also ty I spent some time thinking on this

[Dzian]

WHMs identity is meant to be the pure healer role. able to outheal any other class by a country mile..

the problem is the devs obsession with balance makes this impossible. and the way content is designed makes it unnecessary.

however pushing healers down the route of green dps i suspect would be met with a bucket load of backlash because a very large portion of people playing healers play heals to ya know heal... if they get pushed down a green dps route then why not just play dps??

the other issue comes with how things have been dumbed down and simplified so much there's literally no room at all for depth and diversity in jobs. which leaves no room at all for identity.

you can see this with the tanks. they're al exactly the same. a warrior isnt a warrior its just a pld with a axe.a drk isnt a drk its just a pld with a bigger sword...

6.0 is going to be difficult 2 healers and 2 shielders.. but all need to be equally viable.. so will sch and sages shields stack? if so those bigtank busters are going to be an absolute joke... they cant make them hit to hard after all because whm and ast without shields will still need to be a vaible option.. but if the shields dont stack then you take away the viability of those jobs.. think back to arr and how 2 schs were so much more gimped than 2whms ever were.

they've spent so much time focussing on simplicity and accessibility they dont really have anywhere to go to diversify or give jobs identity anymore. they really need to undo some of the changes they've made.

green dps though i think wouldjust make matters worse.

[Acece]

WHMs identity is meant to be the pure healer role. able to outheal any other class by a country mile..

the problem is the devs obsession with balance makes this impossible. and the way content is designed makes it unnecessary.

however pushing healers down the route of green dps i suspect would be met with a bucket load of backlash because a very large portion of people playing healers play heals to ya know heal... if they get pushed down a green dps route then why not just play dps??

the other issue comes with how things have been dumbed down and simplified so much there's literally no room at all for depth and diversity in jobs. which leaves no room at all for identity.

you can see this with the tanks. they're al exactly the same. a warrior isnt a warrior its just a pld with a axe.a drk isnt a drk its just a pld with a bigger sword...

6.0 is going to be difficult 2 healers and 2 shielders.. but all need to be equally viable.. so will sch and sages shields stack? if so those bigtank busters are going to be an absolute joke... they cant make them hit to hard after all because whm and ast without shields will still need to be a vaible option.. but if the shields dont stack then you take away the viability of those jobs.. think back to arr and how 2 schs were so much more gimped than 2whms ever were.

they've spent so much time focussing on simplicity and accessibility they dont really have anywhere to go to diversify or give jobs identity anymore. they really need to undo some of the changes they've made.

green dps though i think wouldjust make matters worse.

I think Ast actually hold the Pure Healing style healer better then Whm personally. Ast has better gcd/ogcd heals that are just plain better then whm. Ast also has cards to buff up allies that would fill the role of support more then whm that just has heals and damage.
Trying to reread what you said I'm still struggling with what they could do to make whm viable compared to ast because ast does everything that whm does but better (besides cure 3 spam I guess).
I also think that tanks are in a better position then healers are in now. Though they don't have responsibility like healers do (they should have more), They at least have a decent dps rotation to fall back on.

[Shurrikhan]

Fluid aura is a 300 pot Instant cast on a 12 sec cd stacking up to 2 times.

I do not know what this is supposed to mean. Is it a stacking DoT? Does it have two/three charges? How is it "stacking up to 2 times"?

Fluid aura grants 2% mana upon cast.

That in no way makes Fluid Aura any more interesting, as there's nothing worth banking there. If it were a % of missing MP, and the maximum charge time on FA were fairly high, then maybe. But strapping a 2% MP gain on cast to FA is at best flavor text.

Plenary Indulgence: New trait everyone affected by Plenary Indulgence heals for 50% of the damage the Whm does.
Plenary Indulgence: Now has a 30 sec cd

So even less actual use of the majority of our spells? If we had a DPS rotation that had to be banked for to best exploit this window, that'd be something, but your Seraph Strike times so closely that they just feel codependent on (less positively, "bloated by") each other.

New Spell: seraph strike. Ability, instant. 28 sec cd, 25y range.
250 pot attack, grants cleric stance.
New passive cleric stance: Stone > Glare, Holy > Holy II, Fluid Aura > Flood, lasts 12 sec

See above.

Cure I becomes cure II Once unlocked.

This seems more of a general issue of excessive MP generation (e.g., via bloat spells like Lucid Dream that could, but probably should not, have their effects just made passive over time now that they do nothing else) than what would fall under the scope of a WHM rework, specifically...

When a Lily blooms, Medica I and Cure II is now instant and when used it will feed the blood Lily.

So I can no longer choose when to spend Lilies. I'm not a fan.

Cure II now has a 1.5 sec gcd.

I mean, at least you effectively removed any playflow surrounding making/using weave space by making it passive.

Whm relevant buttons now is 26 after the rework it's 27.

How? You got rid of Cure I, Solace, and Rapture, and only added Seraph Strike. Shouldn't that amount to 24?

_________________

Overall:
I'm not really a fan of making even less use of our healing spells, nor having our dps complexity (which in this case is literally just a single extra button before doing all we'd do before, unchanged) rigidly slotted into Indulgence/Atonement (WoW Disc Priest) windows.

[Felien]

Can we wait till they show how jobs will look like in 6.0. Because they will finally fix the healer problem that was created in HW, because balance 3 healers was very hard plus the way that how the game works almost impossible (they kill a lot of the kits).

Now they will finally split in 2-2. Even the content may change a bit and become more challenge in a Healer POV, because now they will have 2 diferents roles in healing.

[Shurrikhan]

Can we wait till they show how jobs will look like in 6.0.

If you're okay with instantly being told to hold any complaints for 7.0.

Because they will finally fix the healer problem that was created in HW

That's... very optimistic.

[Acece]

I do not know what this is supposed to mean. Is it a stacking DoT? Does it have two/three charges? How is it "stacking up to 2 times"?


That in no way makes Fluid Aura any more interesting, as there's nothing worth banking there. If it were a % of missing MP, and the maximum charge time on FA were fairly high, then maybe. But strapping a 2% MP gain on cast to FA is at best flavor text.


So even less actual use of the majority of our spells? If we had a DPS rotation that had to be banked for to best exploit this window, that'd be something, but your Seraph Strike times so closely that they just feel codependent on (less positively, "bloated by") each other.


See above.


This seems more of a general issue of excessive MP generation (e.g., via bloat spells like Lucid Dream that could, but probably should not, have their effects just made passive over time now that they do nothing else) than what would fall under the scope of a WHM rework, specifically...



So I can no longer choose when to spend Lilies. I'm not a fan.


I mean, at least you effectively removed any playflow surrounding making/using weave space by making it passive.


How? You got rid of Cure I, Solace, and Rapture, and only added Seraph Strike. Shouldn't that amount to 24?

_________________

Overall:
I'm not really a fan of making even less use of our healing spells, nor having our dps complexity (which in this case is literally just a single extra button before doing all we'd do before, unchanged) rigidly slotted into Indulgence/Atonement (WoW Disc Priest) windows.

Idk how to break down the comment like you do sorry.
The fluid aura idea is a instant cast 300 pot, not a dot, that has 2 charges. I should of made that more clear. I wanted ways to give whm mobility/weaving options without just copying ruin II from sch or taking ast's 1.5 gcd. I also wanted a reason for a whm to use it even if they don't need a weave window, though I could see why it would seem redundant. Tbh the mana return on it was tacked on.

The main reason we don't use the majority of our spells is because they're such a damage loss compared to other healers. That just comes with the territory when whm has the most opportunity cost. Whm will be a "Pure healer" in End Walker so that means the majority of healing is going to be put on them (if they do it right), The problem will be is that they're actually terrible when it comes to that without losing a lot of damage. My idea was to use Pi to avoid this and allow (with good play of course) a way for a whm to keep close to 100% uptime on dps. I really should add more dps spells to spice it up, like you said yourself. I'll try to come up with some later.

Mp management is kind of a dead thing, All it does it just prevent too many raises. Mp management is kind of boring anyways.

I always felt that Gcd Heals (especially cure II) is a last ditch effort to try to save a party, I don't see a reason to really use cure I ever besides in a low level dungeon.

Is whm supposed to use Cure II or medica I when we have lillies? The only time I could think is when you have a blood lilly and need to heal.

I miscounted which is something I feel kind of embarrassed about. I also didn't include fluid aura in the current Whm design, and I added fluid aura and seraph strike to mine. so it would be 26 actions initially and 25 with mine.

The hard part I'm trying to do is trying to keep whm simple when I really should just try to make them all about the 30sec, 60sec burst frames instead. Whm needs a lot of work but I really don't have many ideas how they could do it with it's current design. If they make content actually hit as hard as people want them to then Whm is at a disadvantage with it's opportunity cost. If it doesn't then it'll just be a boring slog as a whm pressing glare over and over again (all healers might have to deal with it but still sucks.)
Whm will never be as good as other healers with it's current design unless the other healers are straight up broken like they were at the beginning of Shadow bringers.

[Shurrikhan]

If they make content actually hit as hard as people want them to then Whm is at a disadvantage with it's opportunity cost.

...Why would that be the case? WHM does not have uniquely high offensive opportunity costs for its curative GCDs. Quite the opposite, albeit up to a capped amount (similar to how other healers may have a bit more free ppm, but such is likewise capped).

Moreover, if WHM's identity is to remain centered at all around having above-average strength in its GCD healing, additional healing requirements means that it has that much greater a chance for its higher curative ppgcd to hit a threshold by which a curative GCD may be skipped or an offensive GCD retained.

Consider it this way. Even if WHM's direct heals were a whole fifth stronger per GCD than those of other healers, it's going to take enough casts within a window of time for that fifth to have actually made a difference. If you'd normally have to top someone off before a White Hole mechanic, before which oGCDs will already have been spent, at half a Cure II or Benefic II's worth of health remaining after the third crit-less heal, then that added strength might actually mean something -- a GCD spared. Similarly, the more incoming damage, the less is offset by oGCDs alone, again letting that advantage actually come into play.

Whm will never be as good as other healers with it's current design unless the other healers are straight up broken like they were at the beginning of Shadow bringers.

Its current design has gotten closer to parity than probably ever before. I'll not say its especially fun or that its identity is anything deep, but as far as mere parity goes, it's merely slightly lacking in ppm (potency-per-minute), or in the incoming damage enough for any of its potential scaling advantages to shine.